boeklogboek: Alyssa Day – Heart of Atlantis

The eighth book in the Warriors of Poseidon series, published December 4, 2012.
Genre: paranormal romance
Cover: love it

As a war wages between the immortals of Atlantis and those of the vampire realm, a Poseidon warrior fights to save his world – and the woman he loves. And no risk is too great.
The desires of a high priest.
Alaric, Poseidon’s high priest, has made a vow to Quinn, the woman he loves and the leader of the rebel resistance: to save her friend Jack before his last bit of humanity has been drained. Should Alaric succeed, there’s one intimate danger: he may loose Quinn to the love of the man whose life he saved. But damn Atlantis to the nine hells, he’s willing to put Quinn’s wishes first, regardless of the consequences.
The warning of a threat reborn.
The final jewel of Poseidon’s Trident has turned up in the hands of mysterious Ptolemy Reborn, who claims to be descended from Atlantean royalty. He’s about to reveal to the world that Atlantis is real, positioning himself as king. But this magical terrorist is bent on chaos. The only warrior who can stop him is following his own path, driven by the even more powerful force of love. Atlantean powers over the sea could prove just as cataclysmic – for Quinn’s love, Alaric might drown the entire world.

I’ve been waiting a year and a half for this last book in the series to be published. The published kept pushing the release date back for some obscure reason. So when the book finally fell on my doormat, I read it that same afternoon. I am sad the series has come to an end, as I have loved this one from the first book, but it sure is a great ending! And there will be a spin-off series about Jack, the tiger shifter on the cover.

Alaric has been in love with Quinn since the first time he healed her, but as the high priest of Poseidon he has sworn an oath of celibacy. He will lose his magic if he breaks it. Atlantis and the warriors need his magic too much to make him risk it, but he is getting to the point where he no longer cares. He loves Quinn and he wants her.
When Jack almost dies in a brutal fight with vampires and evil shape shifters, something breaks inside Quinn. Serai and Alaric manage to heal his tiger side, but are not sure his human side will ever come back to her. She doesn’t care, she just wants Jack to live. To give them all some time to heal, Alaric takes them to Mount Fiji, where his old mentor has made a new living for himself, and where they will be safe. At least for a little while. They are so tired of all the fighting and the deaths.
Quinn has been just as much in love with Alaric for all this time, as he has been with her. She knows he is just not for her, he belongs to Poseidon and to Atlantis. But this stolen time away together is just what she needs to get her head back on again. She grieves for Jack, who is like the big brother she never had, and tries to make him come back to her, but the tiger doesn’t shift back to the man. Still, he seems to understand everything she tells him.
When Quinn finds out what could happen to Alaric if they make love, she is horrified! They need his magic in this fight, Atlantis needs it. She cannot be so selfish as to take that risk, no matter how much she wants him.
And now there is this new threat, a stranger claiming to be the King of Atlantis, and he has stolen the most powerful jewel from Poseidon’s scepter, which has only recently been found in Greece. They need it to bring Atlantis back to the surface. And he wants Quinn to come to him. Giving the world her name and her face as the leader of the rebels, and ruining her anonymity for ever. What does he want with her? Alaric is furious, and wants to destroy him for putting Quinn in danger like that. And what about his claim to be Atlantean? He is handling the jewel, something no one but Poseidon or his high priest should be able to do. Something is very wrong about his magic.

Poseidon doesn’t answer their calls, the portal is acting strange and abducting people, leaving them stranded in Atlantis, what is Alaric to do? Risking the soul meld with Quinn could amp his power up 10 times, making him the most powerful high priest in history. But for that, he needs to be together with Quinn first! And he will risk everything he has spent centuries fighting for, to get to her and keep her safe. If Quinn dies, everyone on earth will die with her when his rage will make the oceans boil over!

As stated, the book was well worth the wait, and I finished it in record time. I will savour it slowly again in a few days just to make sure I did not miss a fun detail somewhere.
I loved it, finally Quinn and Alaric’s book. Alaric tries to keep Quinn save, but she is not one to run from a fight, she is one to run towards one, to be in the thick of things. She has no magic to fight with, she is an empath, but she knows how to use a gun or a knife or whatever comes in handy. She will stand besides Alaric, never hide behind him.
And of course Alaric loves her for that, although it drives him crazy that she won’t let him protect her. After all those centuries of serving Poseidon and Atlantis, when he never asked for or wanted the position of high priest, he wants one woman for his own, and damn the consequences.

Catching up with all the other warriors and their mates and their lives was great. At the end of the book, some important things have been accomplished, some threads tied off, but the war is not over. And I cannot but have to wait for more in the next book in the spin off series.

If you haven’t yet started reading this series, but you love series about warriors, brotherhood, magic, weapons, evil, and finding love at last, you really should try this series. And now you know it has an end to it as well, so 8 books is not that much to catch up with. Go for it!

10 stars