Shadow's Seduction: Immortals After Dark, Book 17

My issues with this book:(1) It's darker than her previous books. Where's the humor? Her zings, her one-liners, her cutthroat jabs - they are epic!(2) The price. When I pay $12 for a book, I expect a lot of substance. Sadly this just points me in the direction of an author who went to hardcover sales and the series started tanking. The authors that make up this long list are esteemed, but no longer autobuy. I hate adding her name to it, but as much as I loved this series from the time the very first book was published, the last three have been lackluster (Lothaire and MacRieve were the last two truly phenomenal/rereadable books in the series). Then when you tag an HC price on a paperback novella, that's when I'm going to have an issue. And I'm going to show my displeasure with my wallet - it's time for me to wait for paperback. These books take forever to come out anyway - what's another 6-9 months of waiting?(3) I didn't know these characters. M/M is not something I've ever read before, but here is my only issue with that: these were not established characters. If they had been, I would've been invested and hopeful for their story. I vaguely remembered Cas, but as Shadow's Claim is my very least favorite book of the series (I have much loathing for Bettina and her TSTL ways) I have never once reread it. Honestly, I felt when the Dacia spinoff was announced, it wasn't needed. Granted, I'm not the author, but she has a lot on her plate. This is the second Dacian book and they don't have the IAD feel. There are SO MANY characters waiting to get their own stories, I can't fathom why we wait years and years and all we get are two little known characters in this novella - and two unknown characters for the full-length book next month. It's very frustrating for the reader, who spends a lot of time anticipating this series and invests years of his/her life, only to still be waiting for Kristoff and Furie's book (promised back on her message boards over 8 years ago!), we're still waiting for Jadian and his fire demon, for the remaining Valkyries - this was originally a Valkyrie series! KC once said it was envisioned for every book to have a Valkyrie heroine, yet we still don't have a book for Cara and (presumably) Michael, for Annika, for Nix! I wasn't one of the readers screaming for Nix's story - she has a lot of threads in the story arc. But here's my worry: we are going to wait and wait and wait and wait some more for her book, with expectations growing with each year that goes by and we're getting these filler characters, and then when it finally happens... it's a whimper. Expectations grow too high and fans are ultimately disappointed because no author can live up to that, even one as talented as this one. And worse - what if she no longer cares about living up to it? What if she has lost her zeal for writing this series and we just get a closeout book for Nix that is not only disappointing, but wall-banging? I liken it to the Acheron phenomenon. There was nowhere to go but down. I don't want that for Nix - I want her to have an atomic blast, not a slight ripple and I can't see that happening if we're sitting here 3 years from now still wondering where her book is.(4) Enough with the cliffhangers! We're going on 4 years now waiting on closure for Munro and his mate. You've hooked your readers - there's no need to be mean to them anymore. Give us closure with each book, but don't garrote us with the "Coming in the Distant Future" book. I guarantee, fans would be screaming for Munro's book anyway because he's one of the twins (and because MacRieve is a truly astounding piece of writing). We don't need to languish on the hook with that and now additional cliffhangers tacked onto the endings of the newest books - we're bleeding out here.

When I normally begin a review with, “Did we read the same book?,” it’s because I can’t belive there are so many rave reviews. In this case, it’s the complete opposite. I’m a huge Kresley Cole fan, and I was scared away by the negative reviews. In a romance slump, I decided to give this one a chance, and I am super glad I did. Not only is it hotttt, it’s got all of the trademark wit and fun we’d expect from Cole. I am genuinely puzzled that some reviews say otherwise—methinks some people aren’t as comfortable reading m/m as they think they are.First off, it’s a novella. A novella will never be as good as a full-length novel. But if you’re comparing this one to others novellas on the market, it’s clearly a 5-star read.Second of all, I love Nix and the gang too, but it doesn’t mean any Cole book without them is automatically bad.I just feel like reviewers weren’t giving this one a fair shake on its merits. For example, some claimed that Caspion’s main objection to Mirceo as his mate was “Ew, I’m not gay.” NO. He says repeatedly that’s not an issue; he doesn’t trust Mirceo to be monogamous.Again, I just feel like a lot of the negative reviews cane from people who didn’t read the book carefully or who aren’t actually comfortable with m/m. (Did this book really feature anything more “filthy” than the average Cole romance? Nope.)If you go into it understanding that it’s a novella and that it’s an unabashedly erotic m/m read, and you don’t mind those two things, you’ll love it.

Okay, first off - yes, this is a m/m paranormal romance - so the H gets an H. It's there in the book description, it was pretty much hinted at in the previous books, so I can pretty much tell you that all the 1 and 2-Star reviews are because some people don't want a same-sex romance mixed in with their traditional romance series. I can understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea, which is why I believe that the story is more of a side story. It takes place in the Immortals After Dark Universe, the heroes are both familiar faces from the IAD and that leads to interactions with characters from previous books. It does not move the overarching Ascension storyline forward, although we do get to see hints of things to come and there's a semi-cliffhanger that will lead to a future installment I'm eagerly looking forward to. instead, we get to see both Mirceo and Caspion find their fated mate - and complete one another. If you don't want to read a m/m romance, you can skip this one and it won't truly ruin the forthcoming books, just realize that Mirceo and Caspion are a fated and mated couple and you'll be seeing them again.As a gay man who reads far, far more traditional romances over same-sex romances, I can tell you that this is nevertheless one of the best m/m paranormal romance novels I've read. Kresley Cole does not shy away from the paranormal side of the equation, nor does she fall into the trap of "this is the man" and "this is the woman in a man's body" trope, instead, we find two guys that are quite happy to be guys. Yes, they tend to think more with their Little Brain than with their Big Brain, but that's what gay guys tend to do as much as heterosexual men - driven by their lusts. Mirceo is openly bisexual (which was established in previous books) and Caspion is not - he's quite firmly heterosexual, however, even before they find out they're fated mates, a young Caspion's drawn to Mirceo. The romance progresses naturally, there is instant passion (which happens) but love and acceptance don't occur instantly, particularly since Caspion's worried about Mirceo's rather voracious sexual appetite for both sexes - and for Caspion, mated means monogamous forever.I'm not going to ruin the story, because it's too good. But as a gay man, this story really hit close to home in a lot of ways: the fear of one's own sexuality, the craving for a family and children of one's own, the coming to grips with realizing that love isn't really something you can control, and even the struggle when a "monogamist" believes he may not be enough for a more sexually adventurous partner.Oh, and the love scenes? Very well written and hot as well, so enjoy!

Sorry :-( I l normally love Kresley Cole stuff and have bought everything she has written.. Like others I didn't realise it was M/M which doesn't particularly bother me, it was the awkwardness and lack of storyline that totally put me off. I don't know whether she genuinely felt a need to write this particular story or felt it was time to jump on the M/M bandwagon but I felt it failed significantly. I didn't feel engaged by either Mirceo or Cas and I didn't believe the "romance" either. I skipped the sex scenes as I wasn't interested and though "hey ho" at least its an immortals book and I'll enjoy the advancement of the storyline... sadly no. I will be donating this to my local charity shop. Never, ever thought I would say that about a KC!

This is a short story in this IAD series. It was an ok read but it didn't really seem to go anywhere in particular. There were a few moments of excitement to the story but as soon as it got going it was finished.It was mostly about the M/M relationship between Mirceo the vampire prince and Caspion the demon warrior. Will they won't they? but of course you know they will. There wasn't even any of the notorious humour / sarcasm that i love so much in the other books.It leaves you with a cliff-hanger which was annoying but hopefully the story line will be picked up in the next book.So......not much to review in my opinion but if you have read the other books in this series you will want to read this and make up your own mind.I will be reading the next one.

I have read all of Kresley Cole's IAD series, and some are great, some are fine. I decided to try this one, even though it's not a male-female match. I liked the development of the story between the 2 characters, but there was no ending. The book just stopped. So I felt cheated of my time and money. When you read a book, you do expect to have an actual ending, not someone just cutting it off mid-conversation. Is Ms Cole getting too blase about her readers? I'm looking to the other authors in this genre. After all, there are plenty of them.

What is this?! No storyline and more of an erotic book. Sex is a massive feature in KC books and sometimes I skip through as i love the paranormal storyline and amazing writing. Both those things were missing in this and this book just read as trash and I didn't connect with tghe characters. KC writes an erotic series too and this would have fit right in there. methinks like the sherrilyn kenyon DH series this series has run out of ideas now. i will buy the next book in case this was a one off KC is usually amazing.

Agreed with everyone else who is annoyed that the story just stops when it's getting interesting. It's about half the length of a usual KC book. The half there is isn't bad, but it should have been a complete book.