Lord of Rage by Jill Monroe
Genre: Paranormal romance 

Series: Book two in the Royal House of Shadows series
Publication Date: September 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-0373618682
Page Count: 288
My Rating: ★★★

Summary

Once upon a time...the Blood Sorcerer vanquished the kingdom of Elden.

To save their children, the queen scattered them to safety and the king filled them with vengeance. Only a magical timepiece connects the four royal heirs...and time is running out....

Princess Breena had been dreaming of her warrior lover when she was ripped from her Elden castle and thrown into a strange, dangerous realm. Lost and alone, she prayed for survival and vengeance for her stolen kingdom. She found both in a woodland cottage...in a dark bear of a man.

The golden-haired beauty had eaten his food and slept in his bed when Osborn found her. Though he wanted to awaken his virgin princess to carnal pleasures, Breena wanted more—including his warrior skills. Skills the once-legendary mercenary had long buried. Now Osborn had a choice—risk his life or deny his princess her fairy-tale ending.

REVIEW

Being the optimistic sort that I am, I was thinking I couldn't possibly hate this any more than I did the first one.

And guess what? I didn't!

It was a much better quality of writing and of plot and I didn't want to stab the characters in the eye with a spoon, which is always a bonus.

One thing I completely failed to even realise whilst hating on the first book in this series, is that these books are actually supposed to be a retelling of a classic story/fairy tale- this one being Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the first one being Alice in wonderland. I guess it must have slipped my notice first time around. To be fair, my intense hatred was talking up a lot of my attention.

So anyway, this one is Goldilocks and, I kid you not, the story is all there. She even steals their porridge, falls asleep in their bed, and when they return...she's still there!

Tee-hee!

I think this may just be so silly that it's actually gone all the way around the cool-o-meter back to cool again.

...Or maybe I'm just ready for my next tablet.

And the three "bears" in this story are actually...wait for it...Bear-serkers!

Oh, come on! How cool is that?


Okay, so all mockery aside (really, can you blame me?) as I said, this was a vast improvement on the last one and I did actually enjoy it in some bizarre way. The world-building was better explored and the characters showed some depth and pulled a reaction from me when certain truths were revealed. The sex scenes were hot, and I was cheering for the couple by the end.

All in all, it's never going to be deemed literary genius - I'm pretty sure that's not the point of this series. And, you know, so what if I couldn't get through telling my friend the premise about the "bear"serkers without laughing until I cried? At least the love story was good and I got the chance to sample Jill Monroe's writing for the first time.

See. Optimistic. Told you so.