Book Review: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Author: Karen Marie Moning
Series: Fever #1
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: October 31st 2006
My Rating:3.5 cups
Blurb (from Goodreads):

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…

There are moments in my life as a reader when I am kind of scared to read a book/series. Not because of the subject, but because of the number of great things I hear about it. It kind of makes me afraid of being the only one that doesn't exactly like it and like I'm the only one who doesn't get it. I had that fear with Darkfever. Almost every blogger I follow and every person from the reading forums and groups I'm on have read and loved this series. So there was a bit of a pressure when I began reading this book.

The world building is fantastic. I love the history and the way the Fae are described. And I liked that some are hideous like a nightmare. Even I thought they were a little too ugly. But that's good. Again, it's always a good thing to break away from the usual track of things.

Mac was... unique. It's not that I didn't like her, I did. And I liked that she likes nail polish just as much as I do (I'm a girly girl like that *blush*), though I tend to stay with the darker shades myself. I think she's so unique especially because she really is a girly girl. I don't think I've read about a heroine that loves to dress up or wear make up or nail polish so much. I liked that soft side of her. I also liked the fact that she tries to maintain her idea that anything supernatural is just a fairy tale. I liked that she doesn't just get on board with anything, no matter how scary or real things may seem.

The thing I could have done without was the constant "I didn't know it back then, but I would soon find out the truth" thing. Sort of like she's already gone through all that and she's just remembering it. And the more she remembers things, she tries to put two ideas into one. I would've wanted to have this broken into more scenes. Something like "Hey, remember when I said so-and-so did this and that? Well, this is what actually happened". It would be nice to have some more mystery surrounding things and keep me in the dark when it comes to certain aspects of the story. Knowing beforehand that things aren't what they seem makes it a little difficult not to want to jump inside the book and shake Mac a little and tell her the truth about stuff.

Then Barrons came. See, I was sure I would be instantly head-over-heels in love with him. Instead I found him too bossy sometimes and sometimes he kind of pissed me off. Not too much, but enough to want to see Mac smack him. Gibbs' style (on the back of the head for those of you that don't watch NCIS).

The book ended so abruptly I didn't know what hit me. I will be reading Bloodfever, at least to satisfy my curiosity and see if we get some between the sheets action. And maybe Barrons will grow on me. Can't say my opinion about V'Lane, because we haven't seen him so many times yet. Anyway, I'll keep reading.