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A review by micki
Dark Blood by Christine Feehan
3.0
This book really doesn't even deserve 3 stars but it's Sunday so I'm being nice.
I have a thing for vampires and the supernatural. And I like the occasional sexy times in my romance novels. But this book? Ugh.
Boring, ridiculous "spells" in Feehan's made up Carpathian language (Tolkien she's not). The recycled villain(s). The sex with a woman who can't move (her body is asleep)! Yeah, technically she consented, but c'mon! Was that scene really necessary?!?
I skimmed thru a LOT of this book (sacrilege for a true reader), but I just couldn't take the monotonous repetition. I've continued to read this series because I like the "world", and I'm a sucker for the supernatural, but the only book(s) out of the 26 that I really remember are the first (the Prince's story) and Ivory's and Razvan's story (theirs is my fave). There are a few other stories I enjoyed but the details run together in my mind.
Maybe that's the problem with writing an open-ended series with no clearly defined destination- you end up with LOTS of filler (wack "spells", repetitive and cringe-worthy sex scenes, repetitive character and backstory descriptions).
Even at its best this series is not great literature, but it has entertained me on occasion. I'm not sure if Feehan has just run out of gas creatively or if she has given up and is just phoning it in for a paycheck. Either way it's disappointing that more care was not given to a series with a fairly interesting world.
Update: I reread this on 6/18/2019. I don't feel quite the intense level of disdain as I did in my initial review (dramatic, much?!), but I understand the issues I had back then. Those issues didn't bother me as much this time--maybe because I skipped even more of the book. Lol. Yeah, the triplet villains were still lazy, and I skimmed completely over the sex-with-the-lady-who-can't-move section, but overall I was left with a better feeling when this ended the second time around.
I have a thing for vampires and the supernatural. And I like the occasional sexy times in my romance novels. But this book? Ugh.
Boring, ridiculous "spells" in Feehan's made up Carpathian language (Tolkien she's not). The recycled villain(s). The sex with a woman who can't move (her body is asleep)! Yeah, technically she consented, but c'mon! Was that scene really necessary?!?
I skimmed thru a LOT of this book (sacrilege for a true reader), but I just couldn't take the monotonous repetition. I've continued to read this series because I like the "world", and I'm a sucker for the supernatural, but the only book(s) out of the 26 that I really remember are the first (the Prince's story) and Ivory's and Razvan's story (theirs is my fave). There are a few other stories I enjoyed but the details run together in my mind.
Maybe that's the problem with writing an open-ended series with no clearly defined destination- you end up with LOTS of filler (wack "spells", repetitive and cringe-worthy sex scenes, repetitive character and backstory descriptions).
Even at its best this series is not great literature, but it has entertained me on occasion. I'm not sure if Feehan has just run out of gas creatively or if she has given up and is just phoning it in for a paycheck. Either way it's disappointing that more care was not given to a series with a fairly interesting world.
Update: I reread this on 6/18/2019. I don't feel quite the intense level of disdain as I did in my initial review (dramatic, much?!), but I understand the issues I had back then. Those issues didn't bother me as much this time--maybe because I skipped even more of the book. Lol. Yeah, the triplet villains were still lazy, and I skimmed completely over the sex-with-the-lady-who-can't-move section, but overall I was left with a better feeling when this ended the second time around.