Read Our Lips! Book Review Blog: Halloween Vampire Week! 5 Kiss Review: Sweet Ruin (Immortals After Dark #16) by Kresley Cole

An immortal assassin is caught between desire and duty...
A foundling raised in a world of humans
Growing up, orphaned Josephine didn’t know who or what she was—just that she was “bad,” an outcast with strange powers. Her baby brother Thaddeus was as perfect as she was flawed; protecting him became her entire life. The day he was taken away began Jo’s transition from angry girl... to would-be superhero... to enchanting, ruthless villain.

A lethally sensual enforcer on a mission
A threat to the Møriør has brought archer Rune the Baneblood to the mortal realm to slay the oldest living Valkyrie. Whether by bow or in bed, he never fails to eliminate his target. Yet before he can strike, he encounters a vampiric creature whose beauty conceals a black heart. With one bite, she pierces him with aching pleasure, taking his forbidden blood - and jeopardizing the secrets of his brethren.
A boundless passion that will lead to sweet ruin...
Could this exquisite female be a spy sent by the very Valkyrie he hunts? Rune knows he must not trust Josephine, yet he’s unable to turn her away. Despite his millennia of sexual conquests, he can’t ignore the unfamiliar longing she arouses deep within him. When Jo betrays the identity of the one man she will die to protect, she and Rune become locked in a treacherous battle of wills that pits ultimate loyalty against unbridled lust.

My Review:

Eleven-year-old Josephine (Jo) has no memory of her childhood prior to finding her and her small brother in a rural Texas town. She spoke a different language, but quickly picked up English and did whatever was necessary to provide for herself and her infant brother, Thaddie.

Miz B, a librarian, befriends the two youngsters and wants to take care of them. But tragedy strikes when the local drug lord sets his target on Jo and she ends up with several bullets to the face. When she wakes up hours later in the morgue, everyone thinks she's dead.

After she exacts revenge, she decides to leave the town with her brother, only to have him reject her. She's undergone a whole transformation, after all. Alone and afraid, she sets off into the world with her new powers, knowing her brother is safe and sound with the new family who's taken him in.

Jo plans to one day return for Thaddie, her only reason for living.

Rune is a dark fey half-blood - the illegitimate son of the king. When his father dies, so does the protection he offered to him and his mother. The new queen has her eyes set on the young 15 year old and so begins his life of torture at the evil queen's hands.

Set to do anything she bids to keep his mother safe, Rune becomes the queen's assassin, using sex and his lethal blood to kill all her enemies. But when his job is done and he asks the queen to honor her pact and show him his mother, the queen obliges and shows him a mound of dirt where his mother is buried.

Rune vows to kill the queen, but the evil queen has other plans. She tortures him until Orion, a powerful being rumored to have to power to destroy worlds comes upon him and frees him, telling him he can kill the queen and her whole line in exchange for his allegiance to him and to become his archer in an army of supernaturals he calls The Morrior. Rune agrees and for 7000 years, he fights by Orion's side - until they happen upon Gaia - or Earth.

Back on Earth, fourteen years have passed, and Jo is now 25 and is living in New Orleans. She’s best known by the name of Shady Lady and acts as a protector of prostitutes. She desperately wishes to be loved by someone and have a mate - though she has no idea who she truly is or the extent of her powers, which seem to grow daily. The only clue she has is that she feeds on blood and surmises she must be a vampire.

One day, she chances upon a tryst with a gorgeous man she learns is named Rune. While in her ghost form, she spies on him and a whole band of women he's with. He smells so right to her, and though she's never taken blood from anyone before, she finds herself drawn to the handsome stranger.

Rune is sent to Earth to kill Nix, a Valkyrie who Orion has deemed to have meddled in affairs which are leading to war. The only way to end the conflict is to kill the ancient sage. Orion tasks Rune with the mission to end her. But Rune is finding it hard to concentrate on the task at hand as for the first time in his existence, a female is all that's on his mind.

Rune never thought he could have a mate - has never had one in 7000 yrs - so he can't come to grips on why Jo affects him so. But when Jo feeds on him, Jo sets off so many things in motion that cannot be controlled.

Just when Jo thinks that her love life might finally piece itself together, she discovers her brother Thaddie is talking with Nix, a creature it seems Rune is dead set on killing. Can she protect her brother from the fall out, or will Thaddie be a casualty in Rune's way?

Rune surmises Jo is his destined mate, as his blood is deadly to any who are unlucky to come into contact with it, except for Jo. But will Rune give up his livelihood and spend his days with Jo? Will Jo convince him that she's the only one he needs, or will Rune fall to old habits and continue his womanizing ways? And what of her brother? Why is Thaddie mixed up with Nix?

Check out Sweet Ruin and find out for yourself if true love really prevails!

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I totally loved this new installment of the series. I actually screamed when Lothaire makes a super brief appearance. Yaya! OMG so awesome :)

I really enjoyed the waiting game and scorching chemistry between Rune & Jo, though I must admit the scenes were so graphic in places, I double fainted LOL . Wow! *faints again* LOL

Can't wait to see what happens next, though I am curious of Orion and The Morrior. Seems to me they are all just looking for their mates! Love this series. :)

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