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I am addicted.I can't wait for the 4th book coming out in August. I purchased all three Karen Moning books not really knowing her writing. I started reading and sat up all night finishing the first book by late morning. I have purchased the three books four times for family and friends. They are now Karen Moning fans.
do I agree with Danielle.Yes. Curious about how I'd rate the first two books. I wanted more of the new characters and V'Lane and less of what I got. Then, Danielle read it.
Karen Marie Moning did a spectacular job of ensuring that I read her next book in the series. Yes, the book was off to a really slow start. For the genre Fiction:Magic/Mystery, I'm afraid that I am going to have to give this book a 6 out of 10. However, after the refresher, the book somewhat crept along for me. She didn't like it as much as the first two in the series. So. I couldn't wait to get her opinion.
I feel bad about actually saying that because she has VERY LOYAL readers and fans. But, I guess I am. I never thought of myself as the kind of reader who would enjoy a "mystery" or "mystical" kind of fiction. But, you know how it is with a series. But, I feel that she could have condensed this book and really grabbed me.
I'm not even highly disappointed. Is this about the business of selling books or writing for your readers. Not only did I enjoy reading DarkFever and BloodFever, I also really liked Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert (new book coming very soon) and The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. She gave it sort of a "fair" review. I would have preferred if Moning would have shortened the storyline to get the reader to the end of where we actually leave off in FaeFever, thus getting the reader to this point in the story mid-book. But, the poor, beautifully purple, book sat on my TBR pile for the longest time. Yes, that would have been a home run.
My friend, Danielle, got me started on the DarkFever/BloodFever/FaeFeverseries by Karen Marie Moning. Scary stuff, page turning, sexy goodness. They may egg my blog after this review. This makes me sad. It was helpful to get the refresher and it did jar my memory into the two books that I had read last year. THEN.
But, and. And, no. So, naturally, I pre-ordered FaeFever before its release. spend the second half of this book focusing on Mac in the dark side. But, after I devoured her first two books in less than a week, I figured out that Danielle had lent me some really cool "escape" books.
With all of that being said. Perhaps it is because she was refreshing the readers' mind on what happened in the first two books. I just felt "not much" about it. When I first started reading DarkFever, I didn't think that these were "my type" of books. Chances are, I still would have purchased the next sequel. On Sher's "Out of Ten Scale:"I am not sad that I read it.
The ending leaves me wanting to find out what the heck happens to Mac next.
Now that's the juice I loved in the first two books.
Damn her.
I got so involved in writing my blog and reading ARC's, that I just kept ignoring poor FaeFever.
I only got a little bit in this book and too much Rhinoceros Boy Meat in little jars (ick).
I was appreciative of it.
there's always a "but" with me, I loved the end of this book.
Except for the ending.
Somewhere in the 8-9 range.
If you can't craft a story into 3 volumes or less your storytelling skills/writing skills need some work. I was much more interested in everyone else's fate and gee we weren't given any info about the rest of the characters. The story gained some ground in between long pages of Mac being whiny and indecisive. The earlier books/theMacKeltar storylines were nice complete stories which tie together as a series.
As a result I reached the big finale and had trouble caring much about Mac's fate. This is clearly an incomplete story and an artificial method of extending the series into 5 volumes when it doesn't have the content to justify it. By the way - books can be more than 1 inch thick - authors who aren't writing to formula do it all the time. I have a rule, when authors leave readers hanging for no good reason other than profit at the end of the book with a 'to be continued' ending, I don't buy the rest of the series. This shouldn't have been a book in its own right.
People don't want to have to wait 5 (FIVE) years to complete reading a story. I save my book $$$ for authors and publishers that respect their readers. Mac as a character didn't really go anywhere. They were episodic. Add more pages/words to the books, write a better, tighter story, and roll it out in 3 volumes.
There is a reason trilogies are popular. These last 2 Fever books are less able to stand independently. If I still have any interest by the time the rest of the story is complete, I'll check it out at the library.
I keep reading them even though I get irritated at her penchant for digging up plucky, modern virgins to sacrifice to her Highlanders.When an Amazon reviewer mentioned that Bloodfever was considerably darker than Moning's Highlander books, I gave it a try. Samhain is approaching, and it's a scramble to keep the walls between realms from tumbling down. The Fever series is not so easy on the reader. Another formula is to create a character and give her what are essentially stand-alone adventures, with just a few over-arching mysteries. Things no one else seems to notice. It's dark chocolate: sweet, rich, addictive.MacKayla Lane was once a vapid Southern girl, with no larger ambition than to have great hair.
When her sister, Alina, is killed in Dublin, Mac runs to Ireland to discover what happened. Suddenly, Mac is seeing things she never saw in Georgia-creatures of all descriptions, from horribly ugly to painfully beautiful. Karen Marie Moning's books have always been formulaic candy for me. When I finish these books, my reaction is DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT because it's ages before the next is due. She's seen the Sinsar-Dubh with her own eyes, and she knows it's much more than a book. The book ends on the usual cliff-hanger, so dark that a "Note to the Reader" is tacked to the end to remind us that the series is about Light, not Darkness.Many paranormal fantasy series are set up by creating a world, populating it with a group of people, and then exploring those people book by book. So here's a suggestion: wait until all five are out if you don't want to suffer.
Under the tutelage of the mysterious (no, I mean really, really mysterious) Jericho Barrons, Mac is plunged head-first into a world darker and more dangerous than any she could have imagined. Yep, it's darker. It is more like one ginormous book in five installments. Mac discovers she is a sidhe-seer, someone who can see past the glamour of the Fae, and get a look at the truth beneath the disguise. Hair doesn't matter so much anymore.In the third book, Mac finds herself playing each side for whatever advantage she can get, because no side is safe. No neat resolutions, few questions answered, just tune in to the same bat-channel at the next bat-time. Or heck, dive right in if you find the suffering delicious, like I do.
The story starts out slow, with several pages of recaps that I needed and resented at the same time. I had fun browsing through the reviews, which are completely polarized between the positive and negative view points. Jericho Barrons won't reveal his role in the desperate game to find The Book, and V'lane constantly reveals his contempt for humanity. I wish they'd move it to the front, because it'd be a better refresher than the plodding prologue.
The Lord Master, the man Mac believes killed her sister, contacts her with an irresistible offer, and in the meantime, the walls between their worlds are tissue-paper thin, and may break open within weeks.This series has turned Gritty with a capital G. Plot Summary: Southern girl Mac Lane has accepted her role as a sidhe-seer, but in a crisis-of-confidence, she has no clue who to trust anymore. I hope Moning will find a better way to handle this in the next books. I truly feel bad for anyone who read this when it first came out, because a year is a long time to wait dangling from the cliff hanger that Moning created ("Dreamfever" is coming out August 09).Mac's character is growing on me more and more, and while she still mourns for the party-girl that she used to be, at least Mac has accepted her new life with courage. For my part I'm siding with the positive votes, but I'm also into intense, unflinching stories that aren't afraid to go to the dark side.
Also, there is a great glossary at the back of the book, which I didn't discover until the end. Jericho Barrons remains a surly enigma, and I had a feeling not much would be revealed regarding his character in book three. The large organization of sidhe-seers in Dublin should be a safe haven for Mac, but her feud with their leader threatens her safety. The good news is that after the reminiscing is done, I was off and running with Mac on the streets of Dublin again. I think a lot of fans felt sucker-punched after following sweet Mac Lane for two stories only to watch helplessly while something horrible happens to her in this installment.
Moning gambled big time here, and while it surely alienated some of her fans, I think it also created an emotional depth that was lacking before. There were just the right number of revelations or adventures at every turn to keep me interested, and the ending was full of apocalyptic despair. However, I'm expecting a snowball of change will start rolling down the hill with books four and five, and it's time to give us more on Mac and Barrons relationship than unquenched attraction.
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