Thea Harrison - The Serpent's Kiss

Recently, Vampire Queen Carling's power has become erratic, forcing her followers to flee. Wyr sentinel Rune is drawn to the ailing Queen and decides to help find a cure for the serpent's kiss-the vampyric disease that's killing her. With their desire for each other escalating they will have to rely on each other if they have any hope of surviving the serpent's kiss...

Comment: After such a disappointing book #2 in this author's series, I wasn't that thrilled to read this one, although in the end of Storm's Heart the couple of this 3rd book seemed promising. I'm glad I decided to insist (not counting the fact I already had the book anyway) because this story was much better. Not to the perfection of the first book, but better than the second, for sure. Carling is a very old vampire and she thinks she is close to dying because her powers are getting erratic and sometimes she looses conscientious thought and gets "lost" in her own mind. Rune is one of Dragos' sentinels and has a pretty much laid back life, but he's very concerned about his friends, so this is why he asked Carling for a favor in the end of the second book. So this 3rd book starts with him going to Carling to pay for it and fully expecting something that will take a long time but after a strange meeting she says the favor is paid. Still, Rune lingers because he is intrigued with Carling's problem and in the path to help her, they fall in love. I think this book was better mainly because the two main characters have chemistry and the actions they take to help Carling make the story move along which means there's less boring moments than in the 2nd book. I confess I was hoping for a different take in their relationship, but due to the storyline itself it couldn't be. I felt it was too straight, too narrow, I think I wish it could've allowed for more fun in their falling in love, the way it is, it doesn't feel like that. Perhaps it's the fact they're both beings with many years on them, but sometimes there could have been more funny moments than the ones that were. I liked seeing them fall in love though and trying to find a cure to Carling's problem. I was happy to see how simple is was after all that time. This means they can be happy sooner. This 3rd book seemed to have a better dialogue too, so things didn't look so boring. In the end the next couple is introduced and I was so eager to read their story right away, thankfully it won't take too long because the book is almost out and I've just read a review saying how amazing it is, yay. About this one, I'm ok with it, there's still some things in there I'd change but well...this happens to all of us while reading a book that isn't perfection, right?