My philosophy is pretty simple: any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book. I haven’t had many good days lately.’ When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death – a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone – Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers.
What a romp. This was so much fun. If anyone has been looking for a Dark Fantasy version of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, there is good news, Darkfever is exactly what you have been looking for. This is the first in the series of this urban fantasy goes crime of Karen Marie Moning who is better known as a romance writer. Don’t get alarmed, this is not a romance novel although there is a certain undercurrent in it, no, this is a real whodunit, spiced up by some nasty supernatural happenings. There are also some explicit sex scenes and judging from Book Rain’s review, the series is getting steamier from book to book. I’m grateful I read her review because now I know that not only the series ends, but that it is rather like a whole novel in five parts. Although part one has some sort of denouement, the end is a cliffhanger.
Mac (short for Mackayla) is a very naive character. She is also clumsy which is a common cliché in paranormal crime. And she was definitely into the Disney Princesses as a child and still loves pink more than anything else. But having a character like that encounter dark and malevolent beings makes for slapsticky fun.
Trying to overcome the grief over her sister’s murder and in attempt to urge the police to solve the crime, Mac decides to take things into her own hands and flies from the US to Dublin where her sister studied. Before her sister died she left a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone saying that she had been wrong about someone and something needed to be found. All this is very strange and as soon as Mac arrives in Dublin things get even more mysterious. Despite an intense aversion she befriends Barrons, the handsome but moody owner of a book shop.He agrees to help her find the murderer of her sister but only because Mac can help him find an old and very dangerous book.
Mac, as she soon finds out, is what is called a Sidhe-Seer, someone who can see faeries and other supernatural creatures. This helps her to avoid that some encounters end deadly but it also exposes her. The moment faeries know she can see them she is a threat to them and they hunt her. Additionally she can spot magic objects and since absolutely everyone in this novel seems to hunt for the same magical book Barrons is after, they are all threats to her.
This is a fast-paced novel in which a lot of the action takes place in unlit streets roamed by dark creatures. It’s a decent crime story too and there are a lot of other riddles to be solved and characters who have a hidden side which makes it well worth reading.
In any case, this was a true guilty pleasure and I will definitely read the next in the series.
Beauty is a Sleeping Cat 
Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention! This looks like great fun, and I love that cover (yes, I’m into shallow cover-loving-as-reason-to-read-book). But how can one pass up a story with a “handsome but moody owner of a book shop.”?!!
You are very welcome. I thought it was a lot of fun, meaning entertaining and actually quite funny too. I like the cover too, maybe it even drew me to the series… and the handsome book shop owner is quite a character, very mysterious. I’m afraid this is one of the riddles that will take the whole five books to be solved.
This sounds like fun–I like any book that is described as a romp, and while I’m not usually much for paranormal sorts of stories, the comparison to the Stephanie Plum books is definitely in its favor. And this is one I should be able to find pretty easily, too!
I thought it was great fun. I haven’t used the word “romp” in any of my reviews yet but here I had too. I think you wouldn’t mind the paranormal here since it is balanced out. Mac is such a donw to earth character, you could also read it like a bit of a parody. It reads very fast which is nice occasionally.I’m sure you will find it easily and would be curious to know what you think of it.
That one isn’t for me but I envy you if you found a new good series to read.
It’s always nice to have series you can turn to for a easy read as sometimes we need moments with a good page turner novel. (the like-watching-a-film books)
That’s exactly it. After ten hour meetings I can either watch a movie or read something entertaining. Ofte the movie is too long.
I’ve started a mini-project, reading my way through all the firsts in series I have on my TBR.
This series is probably one of the best in its genre but I know it’s not your genre at all.
I would consider any book when someone starts the review with: What a romp. Sounds like a great guilty read.
That’s how it felt… You were warned, should you make the first step…it has five parts and each one, as it seems, ends on a cliffhanger.
I tried to comment on your Wuthering Heights review and will try again later.
I’m not a big fan of paranormal, but for people who like it, I can see this would be a really fun book.
I know, It’s not your thing. There are tons of paranormal crime series out there at the moment. It’s almost scary. Many of those series aren’t good, I’m sure, but some are really great. This one is on the light and funny side, it really made me laugh a few times.
Have never read this genre before, Caroline, but it sounds like fun. I like to balance my heavy reading with something lighter so may try this.
That’s exactly what I like doing. There is a blog called All Things Urban Fantasy (http://allthingsurbanfantasy.blogspot.com) which seems to have over 1000 visitors per day. I saw they gave this one a 5/5 star rating. Not a bad sign.
Delicious sounding. I’m adding this to my RIP VI list. 🙂
It’s fun, I might read Part II soon.