Review: Lachlan by D.B. Reynolds

Book Description

Scotland—sweeping forests, tumbling waterfalls. . .and towering highlands where vampire warriors have ruled for centuries.

Lethal and charismatic, vampire Lachlan McRae woke on his first night to death and devastation—his clan slaughtered, his fortress destroyed. One hundred and fifty years later, driven to avenge the murder of everyone he loved, he’s ready to hunt down and kill the one vampire who was behind it all—Erskine Ross, the Vampire Lord of Scotland.

Beautiful, smart, and cool under pressure, Julia Harper is determined to prove she’s more than a child of wealth and privilege. When a lifelong friend is murdered by vampires, she steps out of her role as an analyst for the CIA, and sets out to take down one of the most powerful men in Scotland—the deadly Erskine Ross.

Recruited by a friend to arrange contact between Lachlan and her best friend Cyn’s mate, the powerful Vampire Lord Raphael, Julia soon discovers that she and Lachlan want the same thing . . . Erskine’s death. But when Erskine sets out to kill Julia instead, she and Lachlan find themselves fighting for her life, and for a love that neither one of them can trust.

My Review

Julia and Lachlan both want to see Erskine dead because he's behind the murders of people close to them and they want revenge. Lachlan wants revenge because so many of his people were killed and he's waited a long time to get revenge. Julia wants revenge because a close friend was killed and she wants revenge for it. Lachlan asks Julia to reach out to her friend who is married to a powerful vampire so they can talk about Erskine. Lachlan is ready to meet with Raphael by himself when Julia is almost kidnapped and they figured Erskine was behind the attempt. So instead of doing things separately, they stay together so Lachlan can keep her safe while they look into Erskine. 

They do a lot of traveling back and forth to meet with Raphael and then to his home in Scotland and the first half of the book was quite dull with all of this traveling going on. I really didn't care for Lachlan all that much because his personality is so flat. Even when he was trying to seduce Julia while they were traveling, I just found his personality missing some spark because he's so dull and boring. Julia has a bit of a personality but we don't really see it until towards the end of the book when things finally start to get exciting. Lachlan plans on becoming Lord of Scotland and in order to do that he has to be the one to kill Erskine to show the other vampires that he's the stronger vampire and a good leader.

They fight their attraction for pretty much the first half of the book but even when they do finally fall for each other and end up in bed...it wasn't very exciting. I didn't really feel a connection between these two for most of the book because even though they become lover's, their personalities have no real spark and fall flat. This book is categorized as a Romance , Sci Fi & Fantasy book but the romance took a back seat to their revenge and their trying to kill Erskine. I found this book more dark and gruesome than romance. 

Lachlan knows that when Erskine finds out he's close, he'll come after them. Julia is a human and stands no chance against a vampire so having her there was just idiotic. But he made plans with Julia and told her that she could be included in his plans to kill Erskine if she helped him and she held up her end of the bargain so he has no choice but to hold up his, even though it could very well get her killed. 

I read pretty fast but this book took me 4 days to finish because I kept getting bored and putting the book down but kept hoping it would pick up at some point. This book starts out slow and only picks up towards the end of the book. If you're already a fan of this series, you might like this book but I can't recommend it.

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review but all opinions are my own.