Dark Desire

This is the most recent (and last) book of the series I’ve read (I have been reading it out of order). I find myself beyond sick of reading about women who are such strong characters as the book starts, but as soon as they meet their “lifemates” oversexed idiots who can’t do anything except think about and/or have sex with the guy they just met. Dear God in heaven! I know Ms. Feehan can write stories with strong female characters because she has, but in her Carpathians books, those seem to be the exceptions to the rule. Its gotten so bad in the last few books that I just threw one across the room. The sex scenes, for me, are not sexy or exciting. The last couple Books they’ve just been creepy. A guy with a God complex and a girl who never/can’t day no – creepy!
Also, A good author would be able to write about two people meeting, falling in love and then getting married. A marginal author uses the stupidity of a “Magical/mystical Bond” to force the two main characters together without wasting time building any kind of relationship. This not only takes away from the readers investment into the story, but it also takes away any belief, at all, that anything is going to happen except that the two main characters are going to get together (and have sex, and more sex and more sex, etc….) This is now going to be the second authour I will no longer read and both of them used this idiotic piece of crap plot point.
Do yourself a favor – Don’t waste your time on these books. They are not worth the time and money you’ll waste.

****I gave it one point for the story idea and one point for the few books in the series worth a crap***

I am late to the party concerning the Dark Carpathian series, but I am enjoying it so far (I’m only two books into this, though). With this story, I really liked Jacques and Shea and thought they made a great couple. The story wasn’t as good as it could have been, though, because far too much of it initially focused on Jacques’ near-insanity and Shea (and then Mikhail, Gregori, and Raven) trying to deal with him. About the first half of the book was taken up in this way, and there was really no focus on the relationship between Jacques and Shea. Despite his initial mental problems, he recognized Shea as his lifemate, but they couldn’t go about forming any semblance of a normal relationship because of the circumstances.

I feel like this book would have been stronger, more effective, and more enjoyable if Jacques’ issues had been dealt with in more of a retrospective kind of way. The poor guy simply had too much to try to deal with for all of that to be taking place during the story. Because of his immense baggage, and the fact that he had literally just gotten out of that hellish ordeal, there was no way that he and Shea were going to be able to do anything but be thrown together in sheer desperation. This doesn’t exactly make for the most romantic of stories.

There were some interesting twists and turns in this one, and those did help to keep the overall story line interesting. We were left hanging, though, in terms of what happened with Raven as well as Byron, though I’m assuming that they both recovered.

Shea O’Halloran is a renowned surgeon dedicated to researching the odd affliction she was born with. Pursued by an extremist group she finds herself entangled with the man that has haunted her mind for years. Jacques has been cruelly imprisoned and left for dead. His desire for revenge and telepathic connection with Shea are the only things fueling his will to live. Dark Desire is the second book in the Dark Series.

Dark Desire can be read as a stand alone book and is a sequel to Dark Prince. It takes place about 25 years after Dark Prince and recounts the more pivotal events relevant to the characters.

Dark Desire is one of my favorite books in the Dark Series. I loved Jacques’ character in Dark Prince but he is a drastically different character in Dark Desire. The couple’s connection and attraction has a darker intensity. I really enjoyed how the story explored the mental instability and codependency issues that events in the book brought about.

I love Shea’s character and she always stands out to me compared to the other female leads in the series. I enjoyed reading how her modern medical knowledge clashed but also merged with the more mystical Carpathian form of healing.

I like how polished this story feels compared to Dark Prince. There is more action and character development. I felt it was an amazing sequel. I love that Dark Desire shows how small events and decisions from the first book greatly impacted the story line.

I have read almost all in the DARK series and rather than review them all just hit the highlights! They all deliver! Sometimes I have to skim the battle scenes as they become too exhausting (I mean really!) in their blow by blow grisliness! But this author manages to write over 2 dozen stories in this series and make them all different in many respects. Hard to do. And if you start at #1 and read in order (not necessary actually but helps) you get to meet the characters (all believable) of each subsequent story so that it all makes sense. I despise “cliffhangers” books and will refuse to be sucked into that low blow marketing trick but Christine Feehan simply sticks to her cohesive plots in each book in her Carpathian series! She has obviously devoted time, energy and research into both her stand alone books as well as her long term storyline. She is a professional!

He compels her to save him, dragging her half way across the world and nearly killing her.
He forcibly turns her, without asking and taking away her humanity.
He feeds her his blood, without telling her the consequences.
He glamours her into having sex, no consent basically means rape, knowing it will completely tie her to him forever.
He forces her to drink blood from another male, when she has refused and just wants some time to acclimatise.
He takes over her body and uses her to kill someone.

& the author insists on describing this as a love story.

The female character may as well be a blow up doll.

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