Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

With her New York Times bestseller Spell of the Highlander, Karen Marie Moning brought a world of ancient magic and timeless love to life. Now, Moning embarks on a fantastic new series about a woman drawn into a seductive other-worldly realm-only to be caught up in a universe-altering battle. A sizzling spin-off from the popular "Highlander" series, Darkfever is filled with captivating characters, paranormal elements, and unparalleled sensuality and heat.

Darkfever opens approximately three and a half years after Spell of the Highlander ends. MacKayla O'Connor's life is good. Or so she thinks until something extraordinary happens... 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. The quest to find her sister's killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She soon is faced with an even greater challenge - staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed - a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae. As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister's death, the ruthless Vlane - an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women - closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac's true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book... because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands.

This is going to be a very short post because I finished this book on 20 December and as I sit here trying to think what to write I realise that it hasn't really left a lasting impression on me. I guess I enjoyed it well enough, but I wonder if there possibly wasn't too much world defining in the form of info dump through out the book for me to really enjoy the story - even if there was quite a lot of action throughout the book.

There were some interesting ideas in the book with all the different types of fae who have all different ways of behaving and appearing - with some of the ways to die seeming truly horrific!

What there isn't in this book is romance, and whilst the author has been quite open about this I suspect that there might be some people who are somewhat disappointed by this.

Overall, this was a solid start to a series that I am still interested in reading but I am glad that I borrowed this book from the library and that I didn't spend my hard earned cash on it.

Rating 3.5/5