Real & perceived hugeness

The Immortals After Dark by Kresley Cole
Book #2: No Rest For the Wicked

What’s funny is that when I was writing about A Hunger Like No Other below and thinking about all the different scenes, I decided then and there that was my favorite book of this series. But now that I’m thinking about No Rest For the Wicked, gosh, this one was so good, too! Maybe this one is my favorite! Maybe I have two favorites. What the heck, it’s my blog.

This is the first book in the series that revolves around the Hie, a kind of road race/scavenger hunt for the immortals.

The hero is one Sebastian Wroth, who was turned into a vampire against his will… “Burdened with hatred and alone for ages, he sees little reason to live. Until an exquisite fey creature comes to kill him, inadvertently saving him instead.”


The creature is Kaderin the Cold Hearted, a Valkyrie assassin sent to kill him. Their super lusty encounter shocks them both, but Kaderin takes off - she can’t think about Sebastian; she’s in the Hie, and the prize is the ability to go back and change history (save her dead sisters!) Sebastian decides to enter the Hie, too, though he just wants to seduce Kaderin and win the prize for her, or help her. This is a very fun and sexy book, which in fact spawned a certain infamous question of the day.

Real hugeness
Here’s what I want to talk about—one of the things I most love about this whole series: Kresley Cole doesn’t do anything halfway. Everything is HUGE!

In book #1, Lachlain didn’t just hate vampires, they burnt him to death repeatedly for 150 years. Kaderin’s not just cold-hearted, she hasn’t felt emotions for centuries, ever since her sisters were killed by a vampire she spared on the battlefield. It is her fault!

And Kaderin is sent to destroy Sebastian, but when she encounters him, she doesn’t just change her mind or fall for him—nothing so minor as that. Rather, her feelings come back, and his heart starts beating again (and they have a fabulously lusty encounter in his castle where he has hitherto suffered, tormented and alone for ages). And yeah, people here live in castles. Not condos. Not houses.

The Hie is also huge. You have minefields and shark infested waters and all-consuming immortal hell fires.

This hugeness of plot just makes everything more fun somehow. I really think this series is even more clever than it appears.

Perceived hugeness

Okay, here is another observation on hugeness: did you ever notice that in this series, as well as many many others, the heroes will frequently worry that they will hurt the women with their huge cocks?

It happens over and over—I would say the majority of paranormal reads in this very blog feature this idea on the part of the hero. Yet never once has a heroine felt upset or complained or been like, Yow!

I find this somewhat humorous, and I don’t think it’s exactly intentional on the authors’ parts. Taken case by case, I believe it’s supposed to suggest, well, yes he has a huge cock, but these two are perfectly suited so…

But when you look at it as an overall trend, it can only suggest that heroes have unrealistic assessments of their own sizes. Because they always seem to think it.

More opinions

Many of my esteemed colleagues have reviewed this series, including Sula, and Lisabea whose book this is, LesleyW, whose reviews on this series are way more thoughtful than mine, Taja who just finished them, too, and probably about 10 other people on my sidebar.  And you'll find MaryKate's fab reviews of #4 and #5 here!