#33 Friend Recommended: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

I think I need to get more book recommendations from Courtney, we obviously like reading a lot of the same things!

 

I'd never heard of Darkfever before she recommended it to me, and I didn't look up anything about it before I started reading.  I saw it on Amazon's Daily Kindle Special for .99 and jumped on it - what a deal! Even more of a deal when I started reading and found out how good it is. Although Karen Marie Morning apparently usually writes romances, she's stepped away (just a little) from that genre with this wonderful fantasy novel... that has a lot of seriously sexy romance in it. But it's not your typical romance novel, not even your typical fantasy romance novel, because this book has more blood, guts and violence than it does sex.

 

Now, I don't want to hype this book up too much, especially because about 1/3 of the way through Darkfever, although I was enjoying the plot line and all of the side characters, the main character, Mackenzie aka Mac, was seriously grating on my nerves. She's 22, extremely shallow and completely convinced that she can take care of herself and take on anything and anyone... even though she's never been anywhere more dangerous than occasional trips from her small town in Georgia to the nearby city of Atlanta. *face palm*

 

Still. The interesting plot and other characters kept me going. See, the Unseelie Sidhe (evil fairies for those of you who aren't up to date on your fantasy) are escaping the prison the Seelie Sidhe (good fairies... if there is such a thing) put them in and are invading our world through a portal in Dublin, Ireland.  Mac gets involved after her sister is murdered and she goes to Dublin to seek justice, never realizing that in order to do so she's going to have to immerse herself in a fantastical world that she's never believed in and always thought was stupid... however, it's hard to ignore a Sidhe when you're staring it in the face. Most people woudn't get the chance to but, lucky Mac, it turns out she's special kind of human, a sidhe-seer... the term is pretty self explanatory so I'll leave it at that.  So she's searching for her sister's murder and getting caught up in a world that she wants nothing to do with, and realizing that her sister had already been somewhat immersed in this world really plays havoc with her sense of reality.

 

And in the middle of all of this are the two walking sex-pots of the series, Jericho Barrons who is... someone? Something? helping Mac. Or is he helping her? Or is he just helping himself? The man is a frustrating mystery of walking sexiness. Although Mac isn't interested in him (she likes a man with good moral fiber, and makes the quip that the most fiber Barrons gets is when he walks down the cereal aisle at the grocery store).  V'lane is the other posssible romantic interest: a Seelie Prince with the power of sex. But Seelie doesn't mean he's a good guy, because sex with a fae is addictive and can be deadly (I really appreciate that Ms. Morning actually researched her Sidhe lore and didn't just make something up, the mark of a good fantasy novel!).  Both of them are possessive over Mac, but not just because she's pretty (although there's def some male territorial hilariousness going on), but because she's the first person they've come across that can sense the evil they need to find and destroy (I'm summing up here, it's so much more complicated than this).

 

Now... you might think that I've given you a whole bunch of spoilers here. Nope. You'll get all this information in the first third of the first book. This is not a quick and easy romance. It's not even a quick and easy fantasy series. The series is 5 books long (I love reading an already completed series) and is full of twists and turns and unexpected developments. Plus, some seriously fantastically drawn out sexual tension. 

 

Even though I was unsure about the first book, I'm glad that I didn't put it down, and I was completely hooked by the end of the second book. In fact, I enjoyed this series so much that I bought them all and have added them to my bookshelves. This is a big deal because I've been trying NOT to add books to my bookshelves, that was the whole point of getting the kindle! But for my favorite books, I like to have them around so I can read and re-read, and this series has now been added to that list.