READING:Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost

I'm really excited about this specific review!!!Not because it's a review of a Jeaniene's Frost book,which i'm always excited about but because this is my first joint review along with a wonderful fellow blogger that i met  through a blog hop!I met Christine from Reading on the Dark Side some weeks ago and we found out that we had many things in common and decided that it would be really cool to have a joint review together.But before anything else i want to introduce you Christine through some Q&A we both answered.

Let's meet lovely Christine:

Where are you from?

I´m from Germany, Bavaria to be exact. I grew up in a very small town deep in a very rural area. At the moment, I´m living in Regensburg, a bigger town where I go to university.

Where do you work?

I don´t really work right now, as I said, I´m still studying psychology at the University.

What do you like to do in your free time?

Besides reading? :) I love listening to music, wachting tv series and movies, taking photos and attending to my very damanding three cats and one dog.

When did you start blogging?

I started blooging in June this year. I´m still very new to the whole blogsphere, but I wouldn´t miss one day of it because of the awesome people I´ve met, both fellow bloggers and authors I was fortunate enough to interview.

What's your favourite book?

That´s a tough one. There are simply too many books to list. Maybe it´s easier to say what books started my love for Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance and Young Adult books. In the Urban Fantasy genre, it all started with Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews. Cassandra Clare´s City of Bones (Mortal Instruments series) was what got me addicted to Young Adult books and The Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward got me hooked on PNR. Right now, I adore Stacia Kane´s Downside series, Suzanne Collin´s Hunger Games series (Mockingjay!!!) and Larissa Ione´s Demonica series.

Where do you like to read?

Mostly, I´m reading in my bed. This is where I am totally undisturbed by my fellow roommates. If the door to my room is closed and I´m nowhere to be found, I´m in my bed reading. Everyone knows that. If it´s summer and I´m alone, I sometimes read outside on our terace. When I´m at home visiting my parents I try to read in my chair in the living room, but I´m mostly unsuccessful because there are simply too many distractions (Unfortunetly, neither of my parents share my love and passion for reading.)

And after we got to meet better Christine,it's time for our review!

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:

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.

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.

Our thoughts on the plot:

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.

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.

Comparing this book with previous in the series:

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.

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!

Favorite scene:

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. :)

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???

Before ending this post i'd like to thank Christine for giving me the chance to do this review together!It was so much fun and i'm really looking forward to doing this again some time soon!