Unfortunately. I was unable to finish this book and have to put it on my DNR list.
I was unable to connect with the character and therefore unable to get invested in this story.
I hope in the future I might try to revisit this series.

Thea Harrison shakes things up in her newest book in the Elder Races series. Lord’s Fall returns us to our hero and heroine of Book #1, Dragon Bound. After several books and short stories featuring the Wyr sentinals and other members of the Elder Races, we once again focus our attention on Dragos Cuelebre and Pia Giovanni. Understandably, since there is no question that this story could only be told through the eyes of the very powerful Lord of the Wyr and his new mate.

In the last book Oracle’s Moon, Dragos and Pia are given a prophesy from the Oracle which will soon come to be–

It had spoken of stars dying in agony, and the nature of evil, of Light and Dark as creatures, and Lord Death himself having forgotten he was a fraction of the whole.

“I am not form but Form,” the voice had claimed, “a prime indivisible. All these things were set in motion at the beginning, along with the laws of the universe and of Time itself. The gods formed at the moment of creation, as did the Great Beast, as did Hunger, as did Birth along with Finality, and I am the Bringer of the End of Days…”

In Lord’s Fall, Pia Giovanni has been the mate to the Lord of the Wyr for seven months now, and is very pregnant with her dragon baby who she affectionately refers to as “peanut.” She is going to the Elven domain on a diplomatic mission to try to convince the Elven Lord to lift the trade embargo between the Elves and the Wyr which is financially harming both demesne. An embargo that was imposed after Dragos Cuelebre illegally crossed the Elven border when he was determined to capture the fleeing Pia at any cost in Dragon Bound. As the new First Lady of the Wyr demesne, it is her duty to try to negotiate an acceptable conclusion to this mess which began with her and Dragos.

But Pia isn’t the only one seeking an audience with the Elven Lord and when another faction of Elves, who had closed off their borders centuries ago, decides to show up and ask for help from the Elven Lord, Pia won’t be set aside and can’t let her chance to mend things between these the Wyr and the Elves slip away so she will travel deeper into the Elven domain, into a place between here and the Other land, cut off further from her mate.

But when it comes to light that someone has unearthed a Deus Machinae or God Machine, and they are determined to use it to destroy the world, Pia gets trapped in the middle of an Elven civil war, and the only one with enough power and authority to step in to save the Elven Lord and his people is the powerful dragon–the Great Beast.

As if all this isn’t exciting enough, back in NYC Dragos is holding the Sentinel Games since he now has to replace two of his sentinels, Tiago and Rune, who have gone off with their new mates. There is a gladiator type competition being held in Madison Square Garden where our five remaining Sentinels are competing with all types of Wyr, including some new and interesting Wyr.

THOUGHTS:

Usually an author in a paranormal romance series choose the way they will be presenting their storytelling at the beginning–it is either by a continued character such as Jeaneine Frost’s Bones and Cat or Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse, or a group of characters with a central background or location where each book focuses on a new couple with only guest appearance from prior or future heroes and heroines as with Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunters or Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark.

I LOVE the fact that Thea goes back to Dragoes and Pia.

Giving readers continued stories staring a main character or characters is wonderful for getting to know your characters, but you miss an opportunity to delve into some interesting side characters. In giving readers, a new hero and heroine to watch find love, we leave behind some characters who might still have a story to tell. In returning to and refocusing on our central characters of this series, Dragos and Pia, we get a chance to enjoy more of their story. It would be exciting to see more authors take note of this twist and think about returning to beloved characters and giving them another turn in the spotlight.

(And the last lines of the book are some of the sweetest I have ever read. *sniff, sniff*)

Received ARC from Penguin/Berkley. Thank you.