Bookake

Lucia the Huntress is a 1500 year old valkyrie, most likely the greatest archer in the world. And she is cursed so that any time her arrow misses, she will be crippled by intense pain. Every 500 years Lucia has to put down a hideous g-d, who would otherwise escape and bring apocalyptic distruction upon the world. So far she has done her duty, but the god is growing stronger, and Lucia needs to find a dieumort - a rare god-killing weapon - in order to destroy him completely.

Garreth MacRieve is Lykae prince, forced to reluctantly assume the throne 100 years ago after the disappearance of his elder brother Lachlain. When Lucia ventures onto the Lykae compound to take out a couple of cupids, Garreth recognises her as his mate. Unfortunately as much as Lucia finds herself attracted to Garreth, she will not give up her vow of chastity which is the source of her magical archery skills. She's also not willing to reveal all of her secrets to Garreth, especially not the most tragic one of all. So she flees from him and concentrates on finding the dieumort and slaying the god. And Garreth follows her; determined to help her, and to have her.

Because the majority of the books in this series overlap in timeframe, the first 50 pages of the book contain plot from the previous 8 books, and is sort of rehashed and spliced together to fit Garreth and Lucia's points of view. I found this a little bit rushed and awkward, although I am still impressed at Kresley Cole's skill at juggling so many timelines and slotting all the plot pieces together. It's impressive, it's just nowhere near as slick as pulp fiction!

Lucia and Garreth did not work so well as a couple, in my opinion. Although Lucia instantly 'clicked' with Garreth, she had serious trust issues. She was determined to keep so many things secret, whereas if she had just told him WHY she couldn't sleep with him, he probably wouldn't have pushed so hard. I suppose 1500 years of never being romantically involved with a man probably gave her a bit of a complex... but her issues really were annoying me after a while. Garreth on the other hand was rather fixated on getting into her pants, but then thats Lykae for you. On the whole they were just an awkward couple for me.

I really think this series is getting a little bit too cheesy for my liking. Or more likely, it was cheesy all along and I'm just becoming more picky. And I'm not sure there are many characters left that I truly want to know the stories of. So its not going to be high priority for me. BUT I hate to leave a series unfinished, so I most likely will be carrying on with it, just not expecting anything amazing out it.