Review: Blood Red Kiss – Larissa Ione, Kresley Cole & Gena Showalter

*I received a free copy of Blood Red Kiss from via Netgalley. This has in no way influenced my voluntary review, which is honest and unbiased *

Good things always come in threes—and this paranormal romance anthology featuring steamy stories from New York Times bestselling authors Kresley Cole, Larissa Ione, and Gena Showalter is no exception!
Get ready for a collection chock full of vamps, demons, aliens, and plenty of sizzle!
In Kresley Cole’s celebrated story “The Warlord Wants Forever,” the first in her scorching Immortals After Dark series, vampire warlord Nikolai Wroth will stop at nothing to claim his Bride, the one woman who can make his heart beat again. But can beautiful Myst the Coveted accept an enemy vampire as her own?
Tehya has spent the last twelve years as an accidental wolf, but is truly a vampire at heart. When she gets injured, Lobo sneaks her inside MoonBound’s headquarters and nurses her back to health…with potentially deadly consequences. Desire collides with danger in “Forsaken by Night,” a MoonBound Clan novella from Larissa Ione!
In Gena Showalter’s Otherworld Assassins novella, Dark Swan, Lilica Swan isn’t quite human or otherworlder; she is the best—and worst—of both. She is willing to do whatever proves necessary to save her sister from the seductive and deadly Alien Investigation and Removal agent, Dallas Gutierrez, even bond her life to his…effectively wedding him. But without consummation, the bond will fade. Can Dallas resist his insatiable desire for the powerful beauty? Or will she lead to his ultimate downfall?

Blood Red Kiss gives readers glimpses into three super-series by three rockstar authors in the paranormal romance universe, and I utterly enjoyed myself reading these!

I had already red The Warlord Wants Forever – the first story in Blood Red Kiss. Years ago, when I first got back to reading, and I think it was one of my very first paranormal romance reads. I enjoyed it back then, but I didn’t love it. Now, though, I did love it, and that may be partly because Immortals After Dark is one of my favorite series now. It’s a great introduction to the series, and I especially think that the Book of Lore at the beginning is a very nice touch.

I had read the very first MoonBound Vampires story, too, but only the first one, and I have to say that Forsaken By Night really made me want to delve back into this fantastic world, the vampires that are like a different species from most others I’ve read about. There is a lot of sexy-times, and there is also war on the horizon.

The one story that was almost completely new to me in Blood Red Kiss was Dark Swan. I say almost completely new, because some of the characters felt familiar – which was normal, as The Otherworld series is a spin-off of the Night Huntress series. And it was action-packed, with great characters, hotness, funny dialogues and now I just want more.

All three stories were well crafted – which can definitely be expected when reading three of the best PNR authors that exist. If you haven’t read any of them yet, I think Blood Red Kiss is an excellent introduction to their writing as well as the intricate universe each of them have invented. As a bonus, there is also a text-message exchange between the three of them, and that had me howling with laughter.

“Your bromantic gestures always warm my heart, but I’m asking you to stand down just this once.”

“You,” he said to Bride. “Devyn is looking for you and mumbling about finally giving you the spanking you so richly deserve.” Merriment danced in her emerald eyes. “Ah, yes. A spanking. A one-handed round of applause for my magnificent ass.”

About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.

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