Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First off, I LOVE Cole's IAD series and as a fan of her writing style, 'MacRieve' draws you in. The problem is that once you're drawn in, the experience is an angst-ridden mess you can't escape with much satisfaction. Too much internal torment, not enough external action, to the point the extreme angst causes the story to collapse in on itself. ***SPOILERS*** The prologue introduces the internal tension by revealing MacRieve's traumatic history as a child molested by a succubus, resulting in the deaths of his parents. Cue nine centuries of MacRieve suffering psychologically to the point that he can't have sex without his wolf taking over. Now, you'd think this tragedy would result in a great drama, right? But the story fails to draw it out in a satisfactory way. There are no antagonists in the book, nothing external to distract -- or rather DRAW OUT -- this internal torture MacRieve carries around inside him. As a result, all that angst gets heaped down on his mate, Chloe, taking a strong, self-reliant badass to the breaking point after stripping her of her family, friends, her life's work as a professional Olympic hopeful, her self-respect and even stripping her of her most basic sense of self as a human being when she transforms into a succubus. Basically, this is the plot: MacRieve's been self-flagellating for nine centuries until he's mated to a succubus who becomes the external target for his pain and rage. Cue his mate becoming the driving force to ~heal~ MacRieve by suffering his abuse until he wakes up and realizes he needs to let go and move past his trauma since torturing his mate to the point that she views suicide as a viable option... well, it goes against his Instinct when it comes to how a Lykae treats his fated love. So, one bad succubus damns MacRieve, one good succubus suffers until MacRieve is healed. The middle section of the story collapses in on itself and just becomes painful to read. And it didn't have to be this way. The story didn't have to introduce other succubi, only to dismiss them. Nor did it have to isolate MacRieve and Chloe by sending them back to the site of MacRieve's trauma. It makes sense on an emotional level in dealing with MacRieve's past, but it's unfair to Chloe as she becomes this vessel for MacRieve to expel all his pain upon, focusing entirely on his own issues while failing to attend to hers. Instead of locking MacRieve and Chloe in a fortress of MACRIEVE'S PAIN, the story could've been greatly improved by incorporating external antagonists to push the plot and character development forward. Chloe's father, Webb, being absent from the majority of the book is nonsensical. All the Loreans just packing up and going home after standing outside the Lykae fortress? Extremely anticlimactic. The action started out great in the first third of the book only to reach its climax at the auction. After that, there just wasn't anything for Will and Chloe to DO besides stew in all their emotional torment. MacRieve's past sucked them back in so the couple could work through his childhood trauma, but to such an exponentially overwrought degree that it became a suffocating reading experience. This is the part where Cole's talent at writing in an emotionally evocative style becomes a hindrance. The lack of external action and the inescapable angst between Will and Chloe made reading this story an emotional experience that I wanted to escape from, not to. This story desperately needed more characters and another driving plot beyond 'mating forces MacRieve to deal with his trauma'. As soon as Chloe's revealed to be a succubus, the story becomes claustrophobic, isolating the couple and forcing them to run the gauntlet of extreme sexual dysfunction (Chloe needs sex to live, yet MacRieve's traumatized and sickened from sex with a succubus). You'd think, considering how many enemies Chloe has throughout the Lore (EVERYONE wants to kill her since she's Webb's daughter) and her close ties to the Order that she'd have cause to interact with other characters besides Will in incredibly interesting ways. Yet the only enemy Chloe faces is MacRieve himself and his hatred and disdain for her kind. Chloe exists in this novel solely for MacRieve; even the scenes where Chloe finally meets other Succubi were utilized for MacRieve's benefit in order to teach him not all Succubi are evil. Meanwhile Chloe's barely conscious and nearly dead when she first meets her aunt and cousin, and she doesn't have any meaningful interaction with them after that. Here's the real tragedy: the plot's half-baked and what little baking powder's been stirred into this tale has been devoted to tackling MacRieve's traumatic past, meanwhile Chloe's existential crises in the here and now serves as another means of drawing MacRieve outside his own head so he can heal from his past, leaving Chloe floundering in the present. The failure to really delve into Chloe's complex relationship with her father at the end was especially dissatisfying (Webb's absence from 90% of the story is baffling). The plot bends over backwards to cater to MacRieve's pain while lacksadasically addressing Chloe's existential angst with the 'rub dirt on it' philosophy the heroine herself espouses. Ultimately, this story lacks the complexity and care devoted to the Immortals After Dark series' more recent installments, i.e. 'Demon from the Dark' and 'Lothaire'.