Book Review "Dark Fire"

Whew, after the Scarletti Curse I was almost afraid to pick this one up, but my fears were unneccessary--although Dark Fire is not exactly inspired, it beats the Curse all to pieces. It is the sixth book in Christine Feehan's Vampire romance series. The plot is fair, the heroine's character is good, the hero is flat and dominating, its a typical Feehan romance. It moves fairly well--you can actually make it to the end of this one. Its better than perhaps the first three--not as good as Dark Challenge. You don't really have to have read the others to read this one, but it is helpful as some of the characters transcend the books.

source

The background that you need for the series is that there is a race of people called Carpathians. These people are like vampires in that they must drink blood, they are weak to sunlight, and can shape shift (into whatever they please). They have unique features like telepathy, a connection with the earth, weather, and animals; and they also reproduce. Each Carpathian be they male or female have their own unique powers. Whether it be the ability to hunt "vampires" or heal the Earth. But they are not killers, Carpathian males that turn violent and become killers are vampires. These vampires are sentenced to death by the Prince of the Carpathians, Mikhail(from Dark Prince) and executed by hunters like Gregori(From Dark Magic), Aidan(Julian's Twin from Dark Gold), Julian(From Dark Challenge) or Darius from this novel. Carpathian males are predators and each have a beast living inside them. After two hundred years the males lose ability to see in color and to feel emotions. Each male has a lifemate, if they do not find her in a certain length of time (which varies for each individual) then the males either destroy themselves or become vampires. When a male finds his lifemate, color returns to his sight and emotions return. The females help the male contain the beast. The problem that the Carpathians are having is that the females of the species are reproducing less and less and most of the children being born are male. Most children do not even survive their first year. They tried to turn human women but when you turn most human women to Carpathian they lose their minds. But it was discovered by Mikhail that women with physic ability could be safely turned to Carpathian.

So in a kind of continuation from Dark Challenge, the troupe(several Carpathians that perform music--discovered by Julian in Dark Challenge) needs a mechanic for their tour bus so they place a compulsion add in a newspaper to draw the right kind of person. They get Tempest and sure enough she ends up being Darius's lifemate. She has a telepathic ability with animals--she can speak to them and control them. Tempest is a loner--she has been alone for as long as she can remember and she really does not feel a need to be around people, but she is good with cars and in need of money so she gets the job. Once she figures out what Darius and his family are, she tries to get the heck out of Dodge, but Darius is determined not to let her go. Darius must figure out how to keep Tempest and protect her and his family because those pesky vampire hunting groups are after his singing sister, Desari, again. The interactions between Darius and Tempest are done very well, but the vampire part of the plot kinda sags and is underdone.

Tempest's character is excellent--she shows great spirit and fire. She also seems to have some good thought processes in her head. When she thinks Darius is a vampire, she tries to get away from him (as any sane woman would). She tries several times to leave, but he doesn't let her. She is always resisting Darius's orders. She doesn't seem to lay down as some of the other heroines have done in Feehan's novels. Darius as a character is flat--he is the domineering male--no humor, nothing but orders that one must obey. He doesn't change much through the course of the novel either. He is just not much of a character.

This novel was good, but I think this is the last one of Feehan's novels that I will be reading. They are good, just not great. If you like vampire romances then you will probably enjoy it, but I would suggest buying it used or getting it from the library--don't pay full price for it.