Dark Curse By Christine Feehan

I am sooooooo glad that Christine Feehan and her Carpathians are back. This was the FIRST paranormal romance series I ever picked up. I was 16 when I borrowed Dark Fire from the library and was forever changed. Isn't that a little young to be reading romance novels you ask? NO! For a sheltered petite christian baptist girl, who had no idea about sex and had never had a conversation about it with anyone, it was the perfect non judgemental learning media.

Well, In her Dark series Christine Feehan likes to write the same characters over and over and over. Almost every woman in this series has gone through some sort of abuse and/or childhood trauma. Out of 19 books and Happily Ever Afters (vampire style) I can only think of 3 of them off the top of my head that weren't irreversibly traumatized at some point previous to the books. All the women have the same problem: they have been damaged and can't accept the Carpathian men,who are by rule, dominating and dark. And all the men are domineering and seen to believe that women were made for bearing children to perpetuate their dying species. It was getting monotonous after a while. You knew what was coming in these books. The same woman and man with different names and a slightly different setting. But the complexities and issues in the relationships were the same and handled without really any change.

Lara and Nicolas De La Cruz fit the character type to a tee. Lara was kept prisoner as a child by her demented grandfather and her evil (or so we think) father in an ice cave for her powerful strain of Dragonseeker blood that allows them to live longer then they should. She is abused in almost every possible way. The only way she stays sane and eventually escapes is her two great aunts who are trapped in the form of dragons in an ice wall and used for experiments.

Nicolas de la Cruz followed the trend set by previous Carpathian hunters as well. He was choosing to meet the dawn aka die instead of becoming a vampire. When out of the blue!!! There she was!!! the light to his darkness!! The savior of his soul!!! Don't get me wrong I love this tried and true plot line but you kinda get tired after a while.

But what I am really excited about in the development of this series is that Christine Feehan has designed a diabolically genius bad guy for the books that has really only showed up in the past five or so gradually. His evil plot: to eradicate Carpathians. He has been developing parasites that are injected into the soil that infest the male Carpathians and through the sexy time with the females infests them as well causing infertility and if conception occurs then 95% of the time it is a little baby boy. So the species can't reproduce. He is a mage who is in league with the vampires, who up until this point we thought were the mostest evil creatures...but now...duh duh duh (say ominously in a deep creepy voice) someone worse is pulling their strings with and evil genius plan!

Oh did I mention that the bad guy just happens to be Lara's crazy Grandfather?
Well it is.

And because of this Lara has a connection to the crazy bastard that helps her realize what is going on and begin steps to saving everyone. True to form Nicolas needs to protect her from everything and so no one can hurt her any more...yada yada yada. We've seen this before
Wait?! What's this? He wants to but for the first time he doesn't force her to do things for her own good like the rest of the males of his race. He is the first one in all 19 books who DOESN"T convert his woman into a vampire. Why? Because she doesn't want to yet...yay for Nicolas!
Want to know what else? Lara has traumatic issues with drinking blood and being used for drinking...and once again Nicolas is the first Carpathian male, who abides by her decision. And guess what? He still maintains his badass vampireness.

Going into this series with very low expectations this time, I was so very happy to be proven wrong. I was waiting for the same formula that Christine Feehan has spit out for the past 18 books. And I was ecstatic that I was wrong. I realize that the book isn't in paperback book yet and I really can't justify buying it for over 20 dollars, but if you wait a little bit and maybe beg those nice librarians to buy it, we should be able to borrow it from them soon.

Click To See the Sexy Book at ChristineFeehan.com
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