This is the fourth and final book in The Royal House of Shadows series. A collection of four books by four different authors, each a retelling of a classic tale. This time we have Beauty and the Beast in reverse.

Liliana, our heroine, is definitely not the most attractive of women on the outside, but is a kind and gentle soul inside. She also happens to be the daughter of the Blood Sorcerer- the one responsible for the death of the parents of all four siblings from the series, and ultimately, for their banishment to the various different realms to which they were forced.

Micah, aka The Lord of the Abyss, is the youngest of the four, and was only five years of age when he was banished. He has no memory of who he was before. Liliana, after experiencing a vision, discovers she needs to reunite all four of the Elden royals by midnight on the night their magical timepieces run out, as this is the only time the Blood Sorcerer can be thwarted. And unless someone intervenes, her vision showed that Micah would be noticeably absent, causing the one and only chance to slip by forever.

I'm sorry to say I didn't really enjoy this one. I found the attraction between Micah and Liliana completely implausible. Perhaps if she'd had the most amazing personality to compensate for her rather unfortunate visage I could have accepted it. But really, she was rather dull.

I also found the pacing incredibly slow. Almost the entire book was set within the walls of the castle with little or nothing happening other than the hero and heroine getting to know one another and the obligatory sex scenes. Sex scenes which, because of my inability to believe their connection, also fell flat.

Overall this series has been a bit of a mixed bag, but by far my personal runaway favourite was Lord of the Wolfyn by Jessica Andersen. Fans of Nalini Singh's other works might want to give this a try to see a different style of writing from her, and a more gentle storytelling pace, but for an action lover like me, it just wasn't enough.