DNF Review: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Posted February 23, 2014 by Holly in Reviews | 4 Comments

DNF Review: Darkfever by Karen Marie MoningReviewer: Holly
Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning
Series: Fever Series #1

Publication Date: October 31st 2006
Genres: Fiction, Fantasy
Pages: 320
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DNF

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Karen Marie Moning's Bloodfever.
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….

I boycotted this series for years because I wanted Moning to finish her Highlander series instead of doing this first person off-shoot. I finally decided to read it because I was looking for a fantasy or paranormal romance and this was free for the Nook.

Sadly, I gave up after 110 pages. Mac, whose POV the story is told from, frustrated and irritated me.  She was shallow and silly. I didn’t connect with her at all, which made reading the story extremely difficult as it’s a first-person tale. I wasn’t very interested in her search for the Dark book her sister told her to find and Jericho Barrons was an ass.

The only thing I found myself even mildly curious about was who her sister was seeing and how she died. But I’m not willing to slog through 5 books to find out.

I was told the series gets better as it goes on. If I was more invested in the storyline I may try to find out if I agree. As it stands, I’ll chalk this up to a failed experiment and move on with my life.

DNF

This book is available from Random House. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

DNF


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4 responses to “DNF Review: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

  1. I can definitely see where you’re coming from. I LOVE KMM’s Highlander books. We do get glimpses of her heroes and heroines from that series in the Fever series, but they’re minor characters.

    I loved the Fever series. From book 1, page 1 I was totally hooked. But despite rave reviews, I kind of hate the new Dani series. I might stick with it, but that first book was work for me.

    Thanks for your review! Loved reading it.

    • I’ve been told the series gets better. A good friend told me Mac irritated her in the beginning, but she came to like her as the books went on. I trust her completely, but I’m not interested in finding out if I feel the same way. I do hope KMM goes back to the Highlanders one day (or to writing in third-person, at least).

  2. See, this is why I shy away from most first person books. If you don’t relate with the narrator in some way, and in a hurry, reading the novel is at best a chore and at worst a punishment. Why do that to oneself?

    • Sorry for not replying sooner. My comment notification got turned off.

      I struggled with first person for a really long time. It’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve been able to read it. It is hard when I can’t connect with the narrator, though. The author has to really sell me on her world to keep me vested. That doesn’t happen often.

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