Lord’s Fall by Thea Harrison

Title: Lord’s Fall (A Novel of the Elder Races, 5)
Author: Thea Harrison
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Piatkus (6th November 2012)
Blurb:

In the latest Novel of the Elder Races, two mates find themselves on different paths, torn between their duty to the Wyr and the passion that binds them . . .

Before she met Dragos, half-human/half-wyr Pia Giovanni was alone and on the run. Now she’s mated, pregnant and heading south to repair the Wyr’s frayed relationship with the Elves. Being separated from Dragos is painful, but for the good of the Wyr demesne they need to figure out how to be partners – in more places than just the bedroom.

In New York to preside over the Sentinel Games, Dragos is worried about his mate, but knows that finding two replacement sentinels is essential to show the rest of the Elder Races just how strong and brutal the Wyr demesne can be. But as the games heat up, Pia’s negotiations with the Elves take a turn for the dangerous, straining her bond with Dragos and threatening everything they hold dear . . .

Rating: *** (3 stars)
Review:

Lord’s Fall is the fifth book in the Novel of the Elder Races series and it takes place six months after the events in the preceding four novels, and features many of the characters that appear in them. Having lost two of his seven sentinels Dragos is forced to replace them not only to keep the Wyr demesne functioning but also to prove to those watching that he is still a force to be reckoned with. Pia takes the opportunity of the Sentinel Games to try to fix the trouble she and Dragos caused with the Elves in Dragon Bound. Like Dragon Bound, Storm’s Heart, Serpent’s Kiss, and Oracle’s Moon, Lord’s Fall is very definitely a book – and a series – which is aimed at an adult audience.

One of the things that I most like about this book is that we get to be reunited with Dragos and Pia from Dragon Bound and we get to see how they, and their relationship, has progressed. I really liked  being reunited with the characters, though it felt a bit like nothing had really changed between the end of Dragon Bound and the beginning of Lord’s Fall except for the fact that Pia is further along in her pregnancy. The relationship between Dragos and Pia appears to have been pretty much left in limbo since we last saw them, which I have to admit I was a little disappointed about – they are still trying to work out what it means to be partners, and in six months I would have thought that they would have made some progress.

One of the main plot threads of Lord’s Fall focuses on Dragos and Pia learning to be a team, even when that means they have to work apart – which neither likes doing. The Elves definitely play a LARGE role in this book, and I found it really interesting to learn a bit more about them – I hope that Harrison chooses to have an elf as a main character in a future book in this series. I also liked the way that Harrison uses the prophecy Dragos hears in Oracle’s Moon as another of the plot threads in this book. It certainly revealed a lot about Dragos, which I thought was really interesting. The Wyr also play a huge part in this book, and I found it really interesting to watch the Sentinel Games. The Wyr demesne is very definitely warrior orientated and quite brutal.

Lord’s Fall acts as a cohesive element and draws the four previous books in the Novel of the Elder Races together into an overall story arc, which I think really worked. As such I really enjoyed its addition to the series.  If you are looking for a good paranormal romance which covers a broad range of paranormal species then you should definitely consider adding the Novel of the Elder Races to your reading list. If you’ve read the previous books in the series you won’t be disappointed with this one.