Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Darkfever (Fever, #1)

by Karen Marie Moning

MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman. Or so she thinks . . . until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone—Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed—a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae. . . .

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane—an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book—because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands. . . .

Look for all of Karen Marie Moning’s sensational Fever novels:
DARKFEVER | BLOODFEVER | FAEFEVER | DREAMFEVER | SHADOWFEVER | ICED | BURNED | FEVERBORN | FEVERSONG

Reviewed by Amanda on

4 of 5 stars

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Full review: http://onabookbender.com/2011/08/08/review-darkfever-by-karen-marie-moning/

I fell into the conversational narrating style by Mac very easily, and I did not even pause long enough to notice that Darkfever is written in first person until I was 50% of the way through the book. Even though I am coming around to first person POV, it is usually an aspect of any book that catches my attention relatively quickly. Darkfever just sucked me in, and deposited me into Mac’s world without much conscious thought involved. I like when books consume me in this fashion, and although I experienced a slight lull toward the end of Darkfever, I do not think this lull affected my final opinion, as Mac always held future knowledge over our heads as though she is recounting a story from the past, and teasing us to continue reading. And I would have continued reading this book in a single day, but my eyes wouldn’t cooperate, and I pretty much passed out about two-thirds of the way through Darkfever. Not even a good book is worthy foe for an exhausting week.

There is still a lot to learn about both Mac and Barrons. I think that is part of why I liked Darkfever; we are slowly introduced to the Fae and what possible havoc they could wreak on the world (and what they’re already doing to Dublin), but at the same time, we are only slightly more clueless than Mac is herself. And it is entirely possible the information Mac withholds from us is knowledge gained from hindsight. I read full well knowing that my questions would likely not be answered in this first book, but that they would be answered eventually. I’m okay with that. Mac, though somewhat annoying in her ability to skip over descriptions, was likable enough to draw me into her consistently unraveling world. And Barrons is incredibly enigmatic, which I love. LOVE. I find myself more interested in learning Barrons’ secrets than Mac’s. But then, Mac freely gives information about herself; Barrons would hold onto his secrets like a selfish child who was never taught how to share his toys, and attempting to extract these secrets would result in tantrums. But they would be very manly, sexy, and [possibly] deadly tantrums.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 22 July, 2011: Finished reading
  • 22 July, 2011: Reviewed