Lord of the Vampires is the first book in the Royal House of Shadows series. The series consists of 4 books written by 4 different PNR/UF authors. I haven't read any of Showalters books (I know. Shock!) but I've heard nothing but great things about Showalter's Lord of the Underworld series. I was excited when I saw that book 1 of the Royal House of Shadows was written by her.Nicolai is enslaved by witches and used as their sex slave. His memories have been scrubbed but somehow he magically conjures Jane to appear in his world, Delfina, and rescue him. Jane is recovering from a bad car accident that left her body battered and broken. As a scientist, she is used to researching the unknown. When a sexy man starts appearing in her dreams and a mysterious book shows up at her doorstep, Jane thinks it is her overactive imagination. Until she goes to bed and wakes up in a room that is not her own and in a land that she is not familiar with.Lord of the Vampires got off to a rocky start for me. I felt like we were dumped in the middle of the story with not much background info. I felt that there were many missing pieces that we were never given to put the puzzle of the story together. Jane is a scientist and is aware of other-wordly creatures. She has experimented on them as part of her research. That explains a little of why she wasn't afraid of Nicolai and the fact that she ended up in a magical land but I found her too accepting of every situation that she was put in. I'm fine with a heroine that can roll with the punches but Jane was too accommodating and questioned very little.Nicolai wants his memory back and is willing to use Jane in order to achieve that goal. He has no qualms using her until he realizes how much he is attracted to her and that she is his. That's right, after 10 seconds of laying eyes on her, Nicolai started going all caveman and saying, "Mine", whenever Jane was in his presence. I know from reading PNR, "Mine", is used a lot when referring to a destined mate. But Nicolai used it all the time. One minute, he was speaking in coherent sentences and then he would be sounding like Captain Caveman. Jane. You. Mine. Suck. It got annoying after awhile. The overuse of "Mine" wore on me throughout the book. And the fact that Nicolai ran around in a loincloth the entire time made it even more ridiculous.I found the plot difficult to follow. Like I said earlier, I felt like I was dropped in the middle of the story. I felt like we were expected to accept things without an explanation. The story was steamy. I didn't expect it to be as steamy and sexy as it was. And the story has many dark aspects that kept some parts of the plot interesting. But as I neared the end of the book, I wasn't invested in Nicolai and Jane's HEA. I just wanted the story to be over. Even though the Lord of the Vampires didn't work for me, I am still going to continue on with the series.
