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The Immortals After Dark series is my guilty pleasure, my comfort food in times of need. Cole always manages to give me a good combination of engaging, sexy and funny. This was no exception.

The Cole formula was unchanged; feisty heroine and broody hero find out they're mated and hilarity & hotness ensues. This time around the finding out happened way early in the lives of our main characters; during childhood. A period of tentative friendship is short lived before the drama and heart ache (and sporadic homicidal encounters) set in. Skip to a couple of centuries later and Melanthe and Thronos finally meet again.

Melanthe was a nice heroine. She's smart, she is feisty, she's funny and she's not too stupid or proud to see her own mistakes. The latter also goes for Thronos, who was an okay enough character but he couldn't really separate himself from the generic broody Cole heroes (except that he talks and thinks in actual sentences as opposed to monosyllables like the werewolves). I think I liked little Thronos better.

There was a strong message against slut shaming and pro feminism, which is cool. Cole's heroines have always been powerful women anyway, and if you think away the underlying message of only being able to be complete with a significant other, the whole thing is quite empowering, really . (I'm kidding, sorta. I know it's PNR.)

Cole loves to show us older characters and that's always fun. We get to see Sabine, Carrow, Rydstrom, Cadeon and Holly among others. Most importantly, Nix shows up and helps expand the Ascension arc and just be fabulous like she always is. (Btw: Nix should've totally ended up with Lothaire. I know, I'm still not over it.).

All in all a nice addition to a fun series. 3,5 stars