Review: Darkfever

Darkfever (Fever #1)
by Karen Marie Moning
Fantasy / Suspense
Amazon  /  Goodreads

Plot Summary:

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….

Review:

I was unsure about reading this book in the beginning because I was afraid this would be full of 'sexy times' type scenes and I felt like that would mean it would be light on plot.  I was totally wrong.  It's does have it's adult moments, but the plot is solid and engaging, and there's much more suspense than romance.  It was in fact, a perfect read for me, because I could hardly put it down, and the twists and turns in the story were delicious.  I was also rooting for the main character Mac, who despite her Barbie appearances, is smart and determined, and I loved that she found a way to persevere even when she was scared and confused by everything happening around her.  She was also really funny and sassy!

Reluctantly, Mac teams up with Jericho Barrons who is such an enigma.  And I love that we are left with so many questions about him unanswered in this book - it's going to be interesting exploring his character further in the series.  He is the kind of dark, sardonic male lead I like to read about, although in the beginning of this story he really came off as a jerk and barely by the end is he starting to redeem himself.  I sometimes don't know what I think about him, but I do like the dynamic that is set up between him and Mac.

The setting and the world building is fantastic as well - the streets of Dublin, while scary with the fae running around, also seems so real and enticing in the way the author describes it.  The fae lore is very detailed and intriguing too - there's so much depth to their world.  The author did a fantastic job bringing everything to life in this book.

I was super addicted to reading this story - it was hard having to stop to do life stuff, when I wanted so much to find out more about the mystery and Mac's efforts to survive.  And if Jericho Barrons would stop being such a jerk!  And by the end of the story, this book continues it's addictive nature because it's a very unresolved ending!  I have so many questions unanswered, that I am picking up the next book directly!