Fever Series Double Review | Book 4: DREAMFEVER by Karen Marie Moning

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning
Paranormal / Urban Fantasy / Romance published August 18, 2008
Delacorte Press
Author's website  |  Goodreads  |  Buy the Book on Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

MacKayla Lane lies naked on the cold stone floor of a church, at the mercy of the erotic Fae master she once swore to kill. Far from home, unable to control her sexual hungers, MacKayla is now fully under the Lord Master’s spell.…In New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning’s stunning new novel, the walls between human and Fae worlds have come crashing down. And as Mac fights for survival on Dublin’s battle-scarred streets, she will embark on the darkest—and most erotically charged—adventure of her life.

He has stolen her past, but MacKayla will never allow her sister’s murderer to take her future. Yet even the uniquely gifted sidhe-seer is no match for the Lord Master, who has unleashed an insatiable sexual craving that consumes Mac’s every thought—and thrusts her into the seductive realm of two very dangerous men, both of whom she desires but dares not trust.

As the enigmatic Jericho Barrons and the sensual Fae prince V’lane vie for her body and soul, as cryptic entries from her sister’s diary mysteriously appear and the power of the Dark Book weaves its annihilating path through the city, Mac’s greatest enemy delivers a final challenge.…

It’s an invitation Mac cannot refuse, one that sends her racing home to Georgia, where an even darker threat awaits. With her parents missing and the lives of her loved ones under siege, Mac is about to come face-to-face with a soul-shattering truth—about herself and her sister, about Jericho Barrons…and about the world she thought she knew.

Shelly's Thoughts... (Minor Spoilers)

I am going to try to keep this pretty well spoiler free so it's going to be a short review from me.  The events of this book have been a LONG time coming, but it sucks that it has to go down this way.  Mac is pri-ya now and only one man can save her, but can Jericho being back the Mac we all know and love?  It really does kinda sucks that when they finally get together it's out of necessity and not because it's what they both choose.  You have to admit, though, that this is the beginning of something very powerful between the two of them.

In this book we get out first look at Chesters.  Ryodan's club caters to and protects Unseelie within it's walls.  In this environment humans are willing prey for the Unseelie.  Mac and Barrons work with Voice, more specifically Mac being able to resist Voice so that the Lord Master won't be able to control her.  Dani and Mac search for more about the Sinsar Dubh in the Abbey's libraries and in the process Mac learns more about where she came from and who her birth mother was.

Mac is tracked by Darroc into the silvers when she attempts to save her parents.  She ends up spending a great deal of time in them where she finds and subsequently loses Christian.  She also learns what happens when she dials IYD on her phone and it's not something she will be able to forget.

This book is pretty non-stop from start to finish.  And just when you think the story couldn't possibly get any better....it does!  This one ends on a cliffhanger and the first time I read it I was NOT happy that I had to wait so long for the next book!  This time through it was so nice to just be able to just pick up the next book and keep reading. 

What Victoria thinks....(minor spoilers).

OH.MY.GOSH! Ugh! I just….. can’t even deal with this right now! It just got real everybody, it just got SO real. If I don’t have an emotional breakdown before the end of the series, it’ll be a miracle. I must admit, I had a deep love/hate relationship with this novel. I hated how it started, with Mac being Pri-ya with the Unseelie Princes, but then again, I loved how Jericho Barrons was there to help. We finally get a glimpse inside the enigma we all get so frustrated with, so I had to take the good with the bad.

After Mac is rescued from the Unseelie Princes and is taken under Barrons protection, she only cares about one thing: soothing her sexual ache.  Don’t get me wrong, I was all for Barrons’s method of bringing Mac back to reality. It made my heart hurt though, that he had to do it out of necessity rather than love, but I still accepted it. After “coming out” of the Pri-ya haze, Mac is a new type of girl. She is harder, leaner, and much more complex.  She isn’t afraid to make her demands to the abbey, Rowena, and Barrons in order to stop the Sinsar Dubh.

In Dreamfever, we learn more about Darroc, A.K.A, The Lord Master, and the role he plays with the Sinsar Dubh. After he abducts her parents, Mac must face the Silvers, magical mirrors that function as portals to other realms, but also The Beast; a large and very dangerous animal, so that she can save life as she knows it. This part of the novel goes by so fast, so make sure you pay close attention! In her attempt of navigating the Silvers, she encounters a world of fire, a world of water, and a desert, so that by the time she falls into the last realm, a third of the last portion of the book is gone! In the very last realm, Mac calls IYD, or If You’re Dying. This was the contact Barrons said to ONLY call if she was truly dying. She makes the phone call, but nothing happens….or so she thinks. Then, out of nowhere, The Beast arrives. With its gray skin, large horns, and dripping fangs, Mac honestly thinks the Devil has come calling. However, it doesn’t attack her; it tries to protect her while she focuses on finding a way home. I don’t want to say much more, because Mac’s encounter with The Beast cannot be described in a few mere sentences. This section needs to be read in a dark alcove where you can read and re-read it as many times as it takes to absorb it all in. However, I will say, in the end, Moning breaks all of our hearts when the beast dies, and we are left to speculate on a cliffhanger.

As always, I highly recommend this series! I think Moning made an epic decision of ending this novel on a cliffhanger, even though part of me wanted scream and throw a temper tantrum. I’m anxious to see how everything comes together in Shadowfever!