Joint Review: Eternal Kiss of Darkness

Hi guys!

Today, I´ve got something special for you. Together with Anna from Books Brighten Your Mood, I´ve planned a joint review of Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost. Before we start with the review though, I´d like to introduce you to Anna. I met her through the Blog Hop, we started chatting and somehow, we ended up with the idea of a joint review. This is one of the most fun things I´ve done so far in my addmitedly short blogger life. Thank you so much, Anna! We did a little Q&A to introduce ourselves, below is mine with Anna, and if you check out her blog, you can read what I had to say (we found out some quite funny coincidences about us as well! The world really is a small place! We didn´t know what the other one would anwers to the question, I swear!).

Now meet Anna!


Where are you from?
I was born in Volos,a city somewhere in central Greece but for the last 4 years I'm living in Athens with my fiance and i have to admit these are the best years of my life!

Where do you work?
I've finished studying psychology last year and since then i'm trying to find a job!

What do you like to do in your free time?
Well, obviously I read a lot,but apart from that I like hanging out with my friends,watching movies or tv series and from times to times i totally spent entire days playing Sims!!!

When did you start blogging?
I'm really new in this wonderful world!I started running my blog in July and to be honest i'm still learning how things work,but i love it!I love meeting all those people from different countries that share the same passion with me for books!


What's your favourite book?
That's a really difficult question cause depending the genre and age i read a book,there are many books i really love.But if i should pick one book that really touched me that would be Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.I may read totally different genres of books right now,but this book is always in my heart.

Where do you like to read?
My bed!!!I like to be comfortable when reading my book and i can't fall asleep if i won't read even a single page!


And now to our fabulous review!

Title: Eternal Kiss Of Darkness
Author: Jeaniene Frost
Published: July 27th 2010 by Avon
Genre: Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy

An immortal war has been brewing in the darkness…and now one woman has stumbled into the shadows.

Chicago private investigator Kira Graceling should have just kept on walking. But her sense of duty refused to let her ignore the moans of pain coming from inside a warehouse just before dawn. Suddenly she finds herself in a world she’s only imagined in her worst nightmares.

At the center is Mencheres, a breathtaking Master Vampire who thought he’d seen it all. Then Kira appears—this fearless, beautiful…human who braved death to rescue him. Though he burns for her, keeping Kira in his world means risking her life, yet sending her away is unthinkable.

But with danger closing in, Mencheres must choose between the woman he craves, or embracing the darkest magic to defeat an enemy bent on his eternal destruction.


Our thoughts on the characters:

Anna:
I loved Kira!!!She is one of my favourite leading characters!I loved how strong she was,independent and caring.I loved the way she proceeded with her life no matter how bad things were and all in all i thought that she was a really well written character.Frost really does a good job when she's delivering a new character and its past.I love the way she presents her characters in every book she's written and she doesn't fail in this one either!
Mencheres on the other hand... Ok,i have to admit it wasn't one of my favourite characters to begin with and at least for me,he failed to deliver the whole sexy,bad style other male heroes have in this series.He's a well written character nonetheless,and Frost gives us an insight in the psychology of a man who's lived more than 4000 years and surely Mencheres is a noble man,but sexy...?I just couldn't see him that way.

Christine:
I have to agree with Anna here, sexy is definetly not the first thing that pops into my mind when I think about Mencheres (maybe it was his hair, well past his chest is a bit too much for me). I also found his change from a man who is tired of being alive or rather undead to a man who is madly in love just a bit too rushed. I know that it has to fit into one book, but somehow, it was hust too head over heels for me. What I really liked however was that Jeaniene Frost didn´t make him the typical über-alpha vampire male but someone who feels the weight of his past and all the things he has seen on his shoulders and is honest enough to feel shame over some things he has done instead of trying to excuse them.
Kire grew very fast on me. As I´ve mentioned before, I´m a sucker for charaters who know the values of family. So it´s no surprise that I liked very much how Kira cared about her sister even to the point of giving up her personal freedom to save her sister. I also appreciate it that the romance between Kira and Mencheres really starts after he has kidnapped her, because everything else would be too (as Kira herself called it) Stockholm Syndrom). In addition, even though Mencheres is incredibly powerful as a vampire, Kira is very strong in her own way, be it in self-restraint after becoming a vampire or as a character altogether. In my opinion, they are a quite well-matched pair.
As from this book on, I also join the “Give-Vlad-His-Own-Book Club”. He is simply awesome. Enough said. :)

All about the plot:

Anna:
The plot here was a bit slow for my taste.The romance didn't grab me as it usually happens with Frost's other books and that was mostly due to two reasons:firstly,as i said Mencheres wasn't my sexy kind of guy,so i couldn't imagine him as a woman's wet dream and secondly the sex scenes lacked a certain spark.
The action scenes,again,just weren't enough.Surely,since Mencheres was so strong a vampire and could kill anyone with his mind's power only,there wasn't the need for any scenes with stakes and punches,but well,i missed them!
To sum it up,although i liked this book,it just didn't grab me and make me wanna finish it in a day.

Christine:
As a criticism to this book, one could say that it´s the basical “girl meets vampire and falls in love and they live happily ever after against all odds” story, but to be honest. We all knew about that before we read it. At least I did and in my opinion, there are far worse stories of that kind. Jeaniene Frost mixes action and romance in a way that it is well balanced, eventhough the story did not keep me glued to the pages. Other than Anna, at least I enjoyed the bathtub scene (which seems to become a more and more common place for dirty business). Give mee a sexy man in a warm tub and I´m sure I could think of something as well! :)
One thing however was a little predictable for me: the whole solution to Mencheres problem of seeing darkness instead of any visions. After mentioning what Kira´s name meant, the meaning of his vision became quite obvious.

And in comparision to Jeaniene Frost´s other books?

Anna:
As it's obvious from the things i said previously,this book,although i liked it,was my least favourite in the series...It had less action packed scenes even from First Drop of Crimson and the romance didn't catch my attention.Although,the strong point of this book was his main heroine.Kira isn't Cat,which is a good thing,but she was so well developed as a character that after a few pages i felt that i already knew her from previous books.Mencheres wasn't as sexy as Bones or Spade but he had other qualities.He was noble and more caring than Spade,at least those aspects of him were presented in more details.I don't want to compare Mencheres with Bones...Bones is one my favourite male characters and no matter how better Mencheres might be i'd just failed to see it!

Christine:
First of all, let me say that I read my last Cat and Bones book (which was book two I guess) about one and a half year ago and I´ve read an estimated ton of books ever since so my memories about the books are not as detailed as they should be for doing this I guess. That very fact is now something between a blessing and a curse.
I seem to have missed a huge part of the story like the events regarding Mencheres´ wife, her inpact on Cat and Bones´s life and their wedding, on the other hand, it allows me to see this book more as one of its own. I have to agree with Anna that I also preferred Cat´s stories, her personality and, well... Bones, but as I mentioned before, there are far worse “girl meets vampire” books out there. Standing alone, Eternal Kiss of Darkness is an entertaining and romantic read that´s stands apart from others due to his more balanced and equal pair of characters.
I really enjoyed the appearance of Cat and Bones in this book (there could even have been more of them) and Eternal Kiss of Darkness has made me want to catch up with Cat and Bones after book two. It lacked however the certain spark in comparision to, for example Halfway to the Grave.

And now our favorite scenes:

Anna:
When Kira meets Vlad!!!I've said in previous reviews that i absolutely love Vlad!When he made his appearance at the book,a smile instantly spread on my face!Is it too much to ask for a book with Vlad???

Christine:
Hmm... let me think. I guess I´ll go for Kira´s egg practicing scene, because it shows her determination and self-control I find very admiring. I also had to laugh for a moment when the secret hide-out place turned out to be Disneyland. I almost suspected to see some vampire verison of Minnie Mouse. :)

And finally: our verdict

We both independetly gave four stars/points to Eternal Kiss of Darkness. Anna didnßt like it as much as Cat´s books, but still enjoyed it. As for myself: It wasn´t one of the best books I read in the last few moths, but I certainly enjoyed reading it and it made me want to read the two books of Cats and Bones´s story I´ve missed.