Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Needing one more book to finish the Ripped Bodice Summer Bingo, I picked up Lord of the Vampires by Gena Showalter. This is the first book in the multi-author series Royal House of Shadows. It covered the remaining prompt of amnesia, but also worked perfectly for the Summer of Swoon 2nd board prompt cover model with short hair.

After the Blood Sorcerer killed Nicolai's parents and took over their realm, he was cast out. His father cursed him and his siblings with the need for vengeance. Now living as a vampiric sex slave and missing his memory, Nicolai reaches out for the one person to save him. He summons Jane, a human from the other realm (Earth). Jane has been brought across and is now masquerading as the return of Nicolai's former owner. As they escape, Jane and Nicolai struggle with finding out how to get his memory back and what Jane's route is to return to Earth. As they fall in love during their travels and experiences, things aren't quite as they seem.

This was a super fun and quick paranormal novel. I have been wanting to try Gena Showalter's books for a while now and this was a fun introduction. The way that she kept the reader also somewhat in the fog with Nicolai about his past was super fun. I enjoyed trying to figure out what exactly happened and how things went down. Jane was interesting and it was a little sad to hear how tragic her backstory was. Now, I know that a lot of the times when there's a person dealing with moving to a new world or dimension, they don't typically have an idyllic home life, but it was just so sad. Jane and her family were in a horrific car accident where she was the only one that survived, but was left temporarily paralyzed. She has gone through a lot of surgeries and is just starting to really be able to live with full function of her legs. I did like that when there were portions of time where she wasn't moving very much she talked about how her legs were starting to stiffen since she wasn't able to do her normal stretches and wasn't going to her physical therapist. Even though there was a couple scenes that discussed her mobility issues, I did wish that is was something that was more throughout the story.

Now, the four-stars is because I thought it was a little too twisty, especially with the shorter length. There were just a couple too many turns in the plot for my enjoyment. I also feel like the "curse" that Jane received was unnecessary. It just tried to add some extra tension that wasn't really needed with everything else going on. I do have to say, this definitely felt like an old school paranormal with the way it was written, which isn't a detractor for me. I just want to point it out since others might find it to feel old. Since I love early 2000s paranormals though, it felt more nostalgic to me and didn't hinder my enjoyment.

I am so happy to have finally read a Gena Showalter, but definitely want to pick up one of her full length novels. She has a lot of series I'm interested in, but I just need to pick one. My sister has read her for a while, so it's been an author I am peripherally aware of. I've also probably bought a lot of her books as presents for my sister. I think it's finally time I start to dig in to her backlist!

Have you read Lord of the Vampires?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: Lord of the Vampires, Gena Showalter, 4-stars, 2 days, Paperback, 288 pages, published in 2011, traditionally published