Series: CARPATHIAN/DARK SERIES
Plot Type: SMR
Ratings: V5; S4; H2
Titles:
Dark Prince (Raven Whitney & Mikhail Dubrinsky)
“Dark Dream” in Dark Dreamers anthology and After Twilight anthology (Sara Marten & Falcon) (also available as a separate e-book)
Dark Symphony (Antoinetta Scarletti & Byron Justicano)
“Dark Descent in The Only One anthology (Joie Sanders & Traian Trigovise) (also available as a separate e-book)
Dark Peril (Solange Sangria & Dominic Dragonseeker)
Darkest at Dawn (contains reissues of Dark Hunger & Dark Secret) Dark Storm (Danutdaxton ["Dax"] & Riley Parker)
This post was revised and updated on 11/26/12 to include a review of the 23nd book/story in the series: Dark Storm. That review appears first, followed by an overview of the world-building and a review of book 22.
BOOK 23: Dark Storm
This is another angst-filled, melodramatic tale with a hero and heroine who spend much of their time either having sex on comfortable beds conjured up in the middle of the jungle and thinking and talking about each other's perfection. Those tender tableaux are occasionally interrupted by graphically violent scenes in which they must extricate themselves from dangerous traps set by the villain. This, by the way, is a very bloody and violent book, with lots of gory massacre scenes.
In this book the showdown scene with the villain is anticlimactic and way too effortless. The mystical magic that Riley practices is filled with nonsensical spells and lots of Carpathian language—in fact, there are two lengthy appendices with more information than you really want to know about Carpathian healing chants and Carpathian language. And let's not even get into the whole rain forest venue, which adds even more to the repetitive nature of this book (and the previous few) with its endless descriptions of the plant life and the humidity. The tie-in with the De La Cruz family has a tacked-on feel to it, as if it were pulled out of thin air just to manipulate the plot. All in all, this is an unsatisfying book. It seems to me that Feehan's books are getting weaker and weaker. They overflow with repetitive angst-filled monologues, thinly drawn characters, totally predictable plots.
WORLD-BUILDING
The Carpathians are an ancient race with many vampiric abilities and limitations. For example, they can shape shift, heal themselves, control the weather, turn into mist, and pull objects out of thin air. On the bad side, though, they must spend most of the daylight hours buried in earth transported from their homeland, and during that time they are vulnerable to staking, fire, or decapitation, all of which would result in true death. Although the Carpathians feed on human blood, they don’t kill their human prey, and they generally live undetected among humans, except for the dedicated families that have, for generations, served as their guardians. Despite their gifts, the Carpathians are on the verge of extinction because, as the series begins, no female Carpathians have been born in more than five hundred years.
The dream of every Carpathian male is to find his lifemate: the woman he will ritually bind to him for the rest of their immortal lives. In the absence of their lifemates, male Carpathians cannot feel emotions, see colors, or dream. The only emotion left to them is the thrill of making a kill, and this is always a huge temptation for an unmated Carpathian male. Unfortunately, once a Carpathian male kills a human, he immediately and irrevocably loses his soul and “turns,” becoming a monstrous vampire whose life is forevermore focused only on killing. Since the temptation to kill becomes stronger with age, older Carpathian males are eventually forced to make a stark choice: become a killer vampire or “greet the dawn” (i.e., commit suicide). If and when a Carpathian finds his lifemate, his emotions and his ability to see colors are restored to him, and his soul is saved.
Each book tells the story of a Carpathian male and his lifemate, always endangered by various bad guys—both human and supernatural, but always hindered even more by their own self-esteem issues and tragic personal histories.
Feehan's website includes free downloads of the first chapter of each of the books in the series. Many of the early books have been reissued. Click HERE to go to a description of Feehan's research on Carpathia. Feehan's web site has a number of additional "Extras," but for many of them you need to become a member of her community.
On her web site, Feehan says, "Although each of my "DARK BOOKS" can stand alone reading the books in order gives a much richer vision of the Carpathian world." According to Feehan, The Scarletti Curse is not part of the CARPATHIAN/DARK series, but one of the lead characters is a descendant of the lifemate in Dark Symphony.
It's been awhile since I last read one of Feehan's CARPATHIAN books, and I'd forgotten just how angst-filled and purple-prosed the writing can be. Most of all, though, I am amazed at the level of misogynistic violence in this new book. Dark Predator continues the story of the Malinov brothers and the five De La Cruz brothers, who grew up together as friends and rivals in Carpathia as members of two of the most powerful of the Carpathian families. The Malinov brothers took the dark path and became vampires, while most of the De La Cruz brothers have found their lifemates by now and have become wealthy land owners in the rain forests of South America. Now the two sets of brothers are bitter enemies because the Malinovs want to take down the Dubrinsky family (the rulers of the Carpathian people), while the De La Cruz family supports the Dubrinskys.
BOOK 22: Dark Predator
As the story opens, the De La Cruz brothers have just won a battle against a Malinov army, but the eldest De La Cruz brother, Zacarias, has been badly wounded. Zacarias is one of the oldest living Carpathians, and he is very close to making his choice between becoming a vampire or meeting the dawn. After the battle, the wounded Zacarias decides to end his life, so he heads off to one of family farms in Peru to do the scorching deed. To Zacarias' amazement and horror, one of his employees at the farm refuses to allow him to die. Marguarita, Zacarias' hapless savior, is a beautiful virginal young woman whose life Zacarias once saved during a vampire attack (in a previous book). Marguarita is mute, her vocal cords having been irreparably damaged during that vampire attack. Instead of being grateful to Marguarita for saving him, Zacarias is enraged, and he attacks her in a horribly painful blood-lust scene (see quotation below), one of many in the book. Marguarita's psychic gift is the ability to communicate with animals, calming them with mental "pushes." She attempts to pacify Zacarias' violent streak by sending him peaceful thoughts, but, unfortunately for her, her gift doesn't seem to work with him. As is true in many of the CARPARTHIAN books, the romance consumes about 90% of the plot, with endless angst-filled interior monologues (and hardly any dialogue). Two brief secondary plot threads involve a drugged-out human vampire hunter and the obligatory attack by the Malinovs. Mostly, though, Zacarias spends his time taking out his fears and aggressions on poor Marguarita, and she forgives him—again and again and again.
This is an extremely disturbing story. The hero is a violent, abusive monster, who continually calls his heroine "little lunatic" as he repeatedly throws her against walls, rips her throat open, and jerks her around by her hair. Imagine, if you will, that the wife-beating Ike Turner was the hero of the movie What's Love Got to Do with It. I know, that would be impossible, but...it happens in this book—the abuser is actually the hero. I can't remember seeing anything like this in the other CARPATHIAN novels that I've read. Yes, the heroes are always über-alphas who don't know their own strength, but they are always extremely sorry about any pain that they cause their lifemates. Zacarias, though, has almost no moments of apologetic thought. Instead, every time Marguarita does something that Zacarias sees as wrong, he thinks to himself, "She must be taught a lesson," and then he does something violent to hurt her. He comes across as a brutal, uncaring thug, while she appears to be a weak, enabling doormat who accepts his abuse because she sees darkness inside him. This is the classic situation of an abused wife who forgives her husband's violent behavior towards her because she is trying to "save" him from himself. Marguarita does stand up for herself in one dramatic scene, but that doesn't end at all well for her. As one amazon.com reviewer writes, this story comes across as an anti-romance, and that's an apt statement. The inevitable scene in which Marguarita is changed over into a Carpathian is the worst scene of all. I was cringing throughout the book, but the physical and emotional violence of that scene actually made me sick to my stomach.
The other thing that was bothersome (and this is a much more minor point) was Feehan's constant inclusion of Carpathian words and phrases, to the point of annoyance. If you are at all interested in the Carpathian language, the book has an extensive appendix that includes Carpathian healing chants, grammar rules, and examples of the language. Click HERE to go to Feehan's web site for links to audio downloads of ritual words and chants in the Carpathian language.
Here are a few quotations from the book to give you a sense of the horrific "romance" between Zacarias and Marguarita:
Here are a few quotations from the book to give you a sense of the horrific "romance" between Zacarias and Marguarita:
This is how Zacarias repays Marguarita for saving him from the sun: "He jerked her to her feet...She struggled wildly and he pinned her with one arm and caught her thick rope of hair with the other, crushing the silken strands in his fist as he jerked her head back....He didn't try to calm her mind or in any way control her knowledge of what was happening. He wanted her to know. He wanted her fear. He intended to hurt her so she would never forget why she should obey....Zacarias sank his teeth deep into that soft, defenseless flesh. He bit hard, without a numbing agent, puncturing her neck deliberately close to her throat. She should have remembered the vampire attacking her. She shouldn't have been so careless as to disobey. She needed another lesson in just what a dangerous, uncaring vile creature could do....There was no way for her to get free and no one could enter the house—his house—without his consent or knowledge. She was completely at his mercy—and he had none." (pp. 36-37)
The next three quotations all come from a single scene. After Zacarias punishes Marguarita for saving his life, he orders her to remain in his house but, not surprisingly, she runs away. This is what happens when he catches her:
"He wanted obedience from her, not stark, raw fear. Well...he'd wanted her to be afraid—to learn her lesson. Fear was simply a tool to him, one he wielded easily." (p. 41)
"He wanted obedience from her, not stark, raw fear. Well...he'd wanted her to be afraid—to learn her lesson. Fear was simply a tool to him, one he wielded easily." (p. 41)
"Hear me, little girl. You will not ever disobey a direct order from me again." She pressed her trembling lips together, covering them with her fingers. He took a threatening step toward her. "Are you clear who is in charge? Who is your master?" She swallowed hard and nodded her head vigorously." (p. 42)
"He'd been careful to go slow as he might approach a wild creature, but she ducked slightly as though she expected him to strike her. The idea was ludicrous. He would never hit her." (p. 43) (What? He has just attacked her in a blood-lust frenzy and then pursued her in a mad rage. Now he can't understand why she is afraid he will hit her? This guy is definitely a sociopath.)
This is Zacarias' reaction when Marguarita helps him recover some painful memories: "He took a step toward her, his teeth snapping together in a vicious warning. 'I should break your neck for such an indiscretion. You dare too much.' He actually twisted his hands together as if he had her neck between his palm....He was on her so fast she had no time to do anything but blink up at him. His fingers wrapped around her throat, dragging her to her feet. Her pulse beat into the palm of his hand....'Sun scorch you, woman,' he whispered...'No one controls me. No one.'" (p. 125)
This little episode erupts right in the middle of one of the rare scenes in which Zacarias is being somewhat affectionate with Marguarita: "Without warning he suddenly jerked her away from him by her hair. It hurt, her scalp tender, but it was more upsetting that he rejected her ministrations. His face was an expressionless mask, his eyes glittering almost red. Ice poured in, glaciers of it, impenetrable barriers locking her out. She was rejected both physically and mentally. He had virtually thrown her away from him without telling her what she'd done wrong. Shocked and humiliated, she sank back on her heels, struggling not to cry." (p. 203)
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