Review: "Darkfever" by Karen Marie Moning

Title: Darkfever
Author: Karen Marie Moning
ISBN 10: 0385339151
ISBN13:  9780739474235

About the book (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….

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Fever #1
Published: 31st October 2006
Publisher:  Delacorte Press
Website: Karen Marie Moning
Excert: Read chapter one here


My Review

Mac Kayla “Mac” Lane had a comfortable life in her small town with her family and worrying about nothing more than her suntan or what to wear the next day.  Her world changes forever when she receives a telephone call telling her that her sister has been killed in Ireland.  Mac decides to travel to Ireland to find out who killed her sister, almost as soon as she arrives her troubles and danger start.

Mac stumbles upon Barrons Books and Baubles after wandering the dangerous deserted streets she later learns are the Dark Zone.  Here she asks about the “Sinsar Dubh” which her sister told her she had to find.  Although initially extremely unhelpful, understandably so we come to learn later, events conspire to force Mac back there where she begins to discover what it means to be a  Sidhe-seer.

Mac grows as a character so much more than I expected her to from our introduction to her.  She turns out to be smart, tough and able to look after herself (all be it with a lot of guidance from Barrons).  I liked how she was able to be some much more than her “Barbie” type looks.

Jericho Barons is a difficult character to weigh up, he is very secretive and there is clearly much more to him than meets the eye.  He is Mac’s main source of information and safety as well as the subject of attraction bubbling under the surface.  Barrons is hot, mysterious, sexy and dark, in other words exactly what we like in an alpha male in urban fantasy.  I’m looking forward to more Barrons in the rest of the series!

The Unseelie Fae are the stuff of your nightmares!  The descriptions of them are hideous and I really never want to meet them.  The Seelie Fae on the other hand are as attractive as can be, I won’t say any more as I’m trying to be spoiler free! 

The world building in Darkfever is woven wonderfully into the story, an intriguing and exciting world has been created by Karen Marie Moning that will hook you in.  The mythology of the world is seamlessly woven into the story.

If you like kick ass heroines and an alpha male who is mysterious, hot and more than a little difficult at times then Darkfever is probably for you!  Thrown in the wonderful setting of Dublin and you can not go wrong in my opinion.

I really enjoyed Darkfever and will definitely continue to read the series.  I am looking forward to reading Bloodfever (look out for a review sometime soon) and am going to try to pace myself so I’m ready to read Shadowfever when it’s released early next year!