Bookfever: Book Review: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Title: Darkfever
Author: Karen Marie Moning
Series: Fever, #1
Publisher: Dell
Publication Date: August 26th 2008
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Format: Paperback, 342 pages
My rating: 5/5

Summary (from Goodreads):

MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman 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 is soon 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, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, 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…

My review: Oh, where to start... First of all, this is the second time I read this book. The first time was back in October 2011, but I didn't make a review of it because well, I didn't have a blog back then. I reread Darkfever because I am (was?) in a reading slumb and I hoped to get out of it by rereading one of the best, if not the best book I read in 2011. The series was recommended to me last summer by Michelle, who is a Goodreads friend of mine. I have to say I deeply regret waiting a whole season, from the summer to the fall to read this one. I kept delaying it because I didn't think it would be this good. But eventually I gave in to see what all the fuss was about. And damn! was I glad I did! Pretty much everyone I've gotten to read these books tell me how addicting it is and how they wish they'd read it sooner. Also another reason why I reread it is that I missed the characters so much. Mac, V'lane. Barrons. Barrons. Barrons. Barrons. Yeah, you get me. :) Right from the start I found this book SO addicting. I kept wanting to turn the pages and not stop reading to find out what would happen next. I loved the character of Mac a lot. She seems to have an easy life as a bartender with loving parents, while wearing a lot of pink. She's 22 and not really ambitious. But as the story goes on, there were a lot of things I loved about her. She loves reading and music for one thing. At first you would think she doesn't have a lot of depth, but through the series she grows up a lot. I love how she goes to Dublin all by herself to go talk to the police about her sister's murder. That takes some courage. I love her sense of humor. I'll put down some quotes of her below if I can, so you can see what I mean. At one point in the book she stumbles bu accident into a bookstore called "Barrons Books and Baubles". I love that name, by the way. I fell in love with that bookstore right away, from how Mac described it. And there she meets... Jericho Barrons. Also I name I soooo love! There are no words to describe Barrons. Bookstore owner, Antiquities collector, not-quite human doesn't seem to be cutting it, so I'll go with a little something from the book. This is how Mac describes him in her mind when she first meets him. "He didn't just occupy space; he saturated it. The room had been full of books before, now it was full of him. About thirty, six foot two or three, he had dark hair, golden skin, and dark eyes. His features were strong, chiseled. I couldn't pinpoint his nationality any more than I could his accent; some kind of European crossed with Old World Mediterranean or maybe an ancestor with dark Gypsy blood. He wore an elegant, dark gray Italian suit, a crisp white shirt, and a muted patterned tie. He wasn't handsome. That was too calm a word. He was intensely masculine. He was sexual. He attracted. There was an omnipresent carnality about him, in his dark eyes, in his full mouth, in the way he stood. He was the kind of man I wouldn't flirt with in a million years." So yeah, Jericho Barrons is a really intense man. Also I'll put some quotes from him down also. Also the one thing that made me read this book is because for some reason, that's totally unknown for me now, they kept compairing Barrons with Bones from the Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost. So wrong. You can't compare those two. Never. Barrons isn't a hero or anything like that. Most of the times he pissed me off like he pissed Mac off, but he's so mysterious I can't help but like him. And in those rare moments he shows feelings for Mac, at the end of the book mostly, I cant help but love him. Especially because at the very end of the book he painted Mac's nails! Come on, isn't that the cutest thing? Never thought I'd say something about Barrons and cute in the same line... Anyway everyone should at least know this character. And then there's the other characters in the book. And then we have V'lane, who's also a recurring character in the series. He's the other guy I liked best, after Barrons. (And maybe Christian but he isn't in Darkfever yet...) So V'lane... My cheeks heat up just thinking about him. Seriously. He's a fae. A what Mac calls "death-by-sex fae" so no need for explanation there. In the first book it's hard to know what to make of him, because you don't know a lot of him. Only that he's a fae prince of the Seelie court. He keeps sexing Mac up. Making her take her clothes off in public which is really funny actually. His character develops a lot in my eyes. I even learn to love him. There were some other characters also... Fiona; hate her. Mallucé, McCabe, Rocky O'Bannion, The Lord Master, the old sidhe-seer woman who we will see more off in the rest of the books, so I'm not saying more about that. I found all of the other characters very interesting. How they all seem to want the dark book. And then there's the various fae. Not only V'lane but also gross things like the gray man, the many mouthed thing, etc... I love Fae books but this one is really special in that way. This book had action, mystery, sexual tension and really the book is just freakin' awesome. You have to read it now if you haven't! One of my favorite things was of course how Mac and Barrons interact with each other. Sometimes intense, sometimes funny. And the sexual tension between them just builds up. So this books (and series) is definitely my favorite Urban Fantasy and maybe even series of all time! Karen Marie Moning will bring out a spin-off series. The first book will come out on october 30th and it'l revolve around Dani O'Malley.

(Mac): ~ I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself. Movies show you the pink house. A good book tells you there's a pink house and lets you paint some of the finishing touches, maybe choose the roof style,park your own car out front. My imagination has always topped anything a movie could come up with. Case in point, those darned Harry Potter movies. That was so not what that part-Veela-chick, Fleur Delacour, looked like. ~

(Barrons to Mac): ~ “Last night you said you wanted to know what to expect so you could better select your attire. I told you we were going to visit a vampire in a Goth-den tonight. Why, then, Ms. Lane, do you look like a perky rainbow?” ~

(Mac & Barrons): ~ "Does it involve stairs?" I asked hopefully. "No." "Of course not. How silly of me. And for our return adventure," I said, in my best game-show-announcer voice, "we will be scaling the side of Mount Everest, hiking boots to be provided by your trusty sponsor, Barrons Books and Baubles." "Amusing, Ms. Lane." Barrons could not have looked more unamused. "Now move." ~