No Rest for the Wicked was almost offensively boring, and when it wasn’t boring, it was offensive. It also has 4.3 stars on Goodreads.
I don’t think this book bothers to take itself seriously, so I won’t give it a serious review. Kresley Cole essentially plagiarizes herself with every novel, so I see no problem with taking plagiarism to its logical end and relying mostly on the work of others to get my point across here. I’m going with RuPaul and her girls as my muses here.
Sebastian (unworthy of the name) is a vampire who hates his afterlife. Kaderin (that is a real name I guess; also this was how I chose to deal with it) is a Valkyrie who hunts vampires because apparently that’s what Valkyries do, but she also has a major chip on her shoulder because her two blood sisters were killed by vampires. They meet-cute, she’s supposed to kill him but he’s too swoony, but she still hates him, but she’s his Bride, they can’t live without each other OR CAN THEY ugh I don’t know I don’t care.
You’ll hear no argument from me that Ihateyou-Iloveyou is a pretty common romance trope, and that a bit of pursuit and wooing can be very romantic if done right. I HATE Kresley Cole’s version of this, though, when it comes to vampires (I can’t speak for her other male immortals because somehow the only ones I’ve read have involved vampires,) which is that since they’re dead, their hearts don’t beat and blood doesn’t circulate. When they meet their Bride, though, they become “blooded,” so they can get an erection. There is only one woman in all of the immortal universe that can do this for them, and she’s their eternal mate.
Noticeably absent from this scenario is, well, let’s see — ANY INPUT FROM THE WOMAN IN QUESTION, WHATSOEVER.
And sure enough, Kaderin would really rather have nothing to do with Sebastian for most of the book. She’s admittedly lusty for him, but she’s really, really clear on the fact that she’d willingly go without acting on that if it meant staying true to her Valkyrie sisters — in particular her blood sisters — but most importantly, to her own feelings of strong hatred and disgust toward vampires. It’s okay to be conflicted, girl. It’s been awhile since you’ve gotten some, but he’s a vampire and there’s bad blood there. You’re just trying to reinforce some boundaries. Which reminds me, Sebastian: she’s just not that into you! When a girl says to leave her alone, do it!
And that’s what really grinds my gears about this book and other books like it. As I conceded above, romantic pursuit can be very flattering and is a fantasy for a lot of women, but Sebastian’s actions toward Kaderin here can be described less accurately as ‘pursuit’ and more accurately as ‘stalking,’ and I just can’t abide that being sold as some kind of romantic ideal. I think it’s gross and more importantly, dangerous. Worse even is that more than once in the book, Sebastian whinges that if it’s what she really wants, he’ll leave her alone, but he’ll be the only vampire in the history of ever to not claim his Bride, which, first, I have something for this —
— but that’s always followed up by some situation in which Kaderin needs Sebastian to rescue her, bringing them back together.
In this world, vampires are essentially the toddlers of the immortals. They’re not as strong or as experienced or as powerful as any of the other immortals. Kaderin, in particular, has a major reputation for being Not The One to f*ck with. And yet Sebastian straight up outwits her or is required to assist her at nearly every turn? Talk about giving your heroines only the most superficial facade of strength, only to completely disempower them when push comes to shove. No wonder Sebastian doesn’t take her seriously when she says she doesn’t need him and can take care of herself — according to Kresley Cole, she does and can’t.
I finally did it after this one: I deleted Kresley Cole from my TBR on Goodreads. There is one book of hers I’ll still read, and (of all things) it’s the conclusion to her YA trilogy. Other than that, I’m done with her lazy, basic, faux girl power detritus.
[finger snaps in Z formation]
Boom! goes the dynamite. UGH! with Kresely Cole. It’s generally misogyny masquerading as empowerment,
“Misogyny masquerading as empowerment” is exactly what it is, and is possibly why I have such a low tolerance for her books. For the most part, outdated gender tropes in romance don’t get my goat too much, but when a book is pretending to have powerful women yet continually cuts them off at the knees, it’s a particular peeve that makes me stabby.
I actually like this one, in a total guilty pleasure sort of way. It’s absolutely my favourite of the Wroth brothers’ books.
I secretly very much enjoy Holly and Cadeon’s book (Dark Desires After Dusk). I had to look up the name, though because she overlaps them so much. I had to look up her name, too.
How did Holly end up with such a normal name? She must be human.
I don’t know what it is. I usually have a very high tolerance for silliness, but I think reading this back to back with The Countess Conspiracy and the Suffragette Scandal really emphasized how progressive this wasn’t. No shade if you enjoyed it though!
I’m able to put aside my disapproval of the gender stereotyping in the early Immortals After Dark books because I like them as trashy entertainment. I find that the horrible stereotyping of both men and women in paranormal romance is generally quite awful, no matter what supernatural creatures the books portray. It’s why I vastly prefer paranormal/urban fantasy, which frequently has a strong romantic element, but where the gender roles are rarely quite so misogynistic and the development and characterisation of all the characters tends to be a lot more nuanced.
Kresley Cole and Courtney Milan exist in different universes where writing skill and quality is concerned. I would never even begin to compare the two, except that they are both women who write books that are classed as romance and their readership is mostly female.
Also, no matter what you do, do NOT read Macrieve. You will be spitting blood.
I know nothing about Kresley Cole, but I came here for the drag. You did not disappoint. 5 stars.
I’ll stand up and admit that I enjoyed this book. Don’t you judge me! I also liked that vampire show Moonlight, because Logan. Sometimes I prefer to throw down the trappings of education and taste and enjoy a solid guilty pleasure.
If you’re going to poke at the stalker behavior (not disagreeing with you BTW) then you also have to point out how racist the Valkyrie are. One vampire killed my sister so I’m going to KILL ALL VAMPIRES! The entire Immortal world is made up of sexy toddlers. I choose to ignore it for the superficial enjoyment of these books but the truth is the whole immortal world she has created makes no sense and is populated by relatively awful people.
I love the idea of Valkyrie, as I’m pretty sure the Valkyrie is my spirit animal. There is a great quote from White Oleander: “We are the Valkyrie, we go into battle without armor for the blood and the flush of it.” In theory the Valkyrie should make for great protagonists.
Instead they are super racists 12 year old girls who are either killing Vampires on sight or painting their nails, screeching, and playing video games. Oh and they’re super into shiny crap. Want to keep the powerful Valkyrie from killing you? Bedazzle a wallet and they’re powerless!
Some days I think about taking a pass at writing a supernatural romance. Because apparently the bar to be super successful is fairly low. And while I can only come up with like 2 un-cringeworthy terms for genitalia, I’m confident I could do a better job of creating a compelling supernatural world with more reasonable sexytime people in it.
I’m the last person to judge guilty pleasures — believe me! My house is very much made of glass on that front. Love this comment and your bang-on assessment of the Valkyrie characters. So screechy! I’m all for the idea of giving lady warriors some traditionally feminine qualities so they’re not just “act like men = Strong Female Character!” but she went for the grossest possible stereotypes. Like, yeah, the Shiny Things thing? Just, ugh. Again.
Please tell me when you attempt your PNR. I am really disappointed by how regressive so many of them seem to be, but the supernatural appeal is such a huge thing that I think a lot of readers look past the problematic aspects. I just need to get off my own lawn because I’m becoming less and less able to do that.
Oh, and I don’t think you need more than 2 words for genitalia. I recall a passage where I stopped focusing on the sex and instead counted the number of times she said ‘shaft’ because it was so repetitive.
Perhaps she was confused because it kept disappearing and reappearing.