Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Darkfever opens approximately three and a half years after Spell of the Highlander ends. MacKayla O'Connor's life is good. 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 soon is 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, 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.

If you are expecting Darkfever to by like KMM's highlander books, you will be disappointed. It's not like her past books. First, its first person point of view. I thought I'd have issues with it, but I didn't. Second, no romance. It's more of a paranormal suspense.

I liked the book though. I had a few issues with it. Mainly because I have questions the book didn't answer, but will probably be answered later on in the series.

Who is Jerricho? Will Mac learn about her heritage. Not just she's a sidhaseer (or however you spell it) but who her real parents are. Will they cross paths with the MacKelter's? What was in Alina's journal?

I like Mac. Since the story is told from her point of view, we understand why she's trying to find Alina's murderer. She wants to know what Alina's last message was about and she wants to understand why Alina was murdered. She goes to Dublin and is thrown into a world with things she didn't think possible.

Jerricho. Meh. I don't feel anything for him right now. I guess because I have this doubts about who is really is.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this series. I have to say KMM did a pretty good job of going a different direction.

I give this a B.

Dylan's Take:

Hero: Jericho Barrons (I'm assuming)
Heroine: MacKayla Lane
Grade: B-

Hmm...Izzy already gave you guys the run down (in italics) about this new series by Karen Marie Moning. I started it the night before last but I only read the very first chapter...last night, I finished the book and I think the reason I read it so fast (for me anyway) was because I was really nosy to see what was going to happen next.

I'm not sure how I feel about Jericho yet, I don't hate him, but I also don't think he's all that right now, I hated that he called Mac, Ms. Lane ALL THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE DAMN BOOK, that bothered me more than a little but me and Barrons come from two totally different worlds, I live in the world that Mac USED to live in and I love it, so I can see why Mac was so hesitant to believe anything Barrons was telling her.

This first book really did a good job of being mysterious because I WILL be reading the next book and I will be wondering what exactly Jericho is, I want to know why all of this is coming to past and I want to know what happens next.

This book was totally different from any other KMM book that I read but I thought she did a good job, it hooked me from the beginning of the book and I like Mac's voice, though I'm not a big fan of first person in books, Mac's storytelling voice was easy to follow and I felt like she was sitting right in front of me, telling what happened. It was good stuff.

Very suspenseful and though there was no romance at all, I was still feelin' this book. The pace was good, the story as a whole was great and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Yeah, give it a shot.