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Bloodfever

Karen Marie Moning

Published 2008         368 pages

Reviewed by Ania Tyburska

Summary (from the book jacket)

“I used to be your everyday, average girl but all that changed one night in Dublin, when I saw my first Fae, and got dragged into a world of deadly immortals and ancient secrets...”

In her fight to stay alive, Mac must find the Sinsar Dubh—a million year old book of deadly black magic, which holds the key to power over both the worlds of Fae and Man. Pursued by assassins, surrounded by people she knows she can’t trust, Mac finds herself torn between two dangerous and powerful men, V’lane, a lethal Fae prince and the mysterious Jericho Barrons.

The Review

Some series just drag you in and before you know you are on the third or fourth instalment and all the story behind is just mixed together. That's my experience with the Fever series and it makes it really difficult to distinguish between the books. Still my task is to review Bloodfever, so here it goes.

The second part of the Fever series starts immediately after the end of Darkfever and it makes virtually no sense not to read the books in order. Mac is settling into her new life in Dublin, which consists mainly of hunting for Fae power objects and squabbles with her host Jericho Barrons. She is learning how to deal with the reality of being a sidhe-seer and gathering knowledge about the world on the verge of a war between Fae and Men.

It may sound like a pretty boring story acionwise, but believe me, there are many things happening along the way up to the nerve-racking climax. Karen Moning came up with a complex mythology and discovering her world along Mac proves to be rewarding. As the events unravel, certain details mentioned in the passing, click into place and the reader starts to understand how some things may play out in the future. I know, I sound awfully cryptic, but Bloodfever is a kind of book where secrets are piled up thick and spoilers would just suck the whole fun out.

Maybe I will allow myself just one spill. Don't count on some major developments in the romance department. For most of the story Mac is suspended between her strange companion Jericho Barrons and the Fae prince V'lane and deeply mistrusts them both. She is also in denial about her sexuality which makes her feelings towards both men (I use the term “men” very loosely) even more ambivalent. It jarred me that a modern woman, even in her early twenties, can be so immature when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex, but the whole Fever series is on some level a story about the personal growth. We need to see Mac behaving like a spoiled brat to understand how far she develops throughout all five books.

Another fine quality of the story are the male characters. Very often when the heroine finds herself in a kind of romantic triangle, the readers instinctively gravitates towards one of her counterparts and starts hating the other. Here there should be no team Barrons or team V'lane. They are both equally flawed. V'lane, being Fae, considers humans beneath him and struggles with some of the basic humanity's concepts. Barrons' agenda is a complete mystery, the only thing for sure is that he has one. And for some unknown reason they hate each others guts. I really hoped for a confrontation, but that comes later into the story.

Honorary vampire mention goes once again to Malluche, who has a much larger role to play in this book than anyone could suspect after Darkfever. As the pantheon of villains stays mostly the same, there are some great additions to the white hat party, but I think I'll wait with Dani's description till the next books review. Just keep in mind dear reader that you should pay attention to Mac's even briefest encounters. All those people will have their part in the later events.

All in all it's a great read and actually an improvement on the first part, for which I'm adding another half star. The only vices are sometimes lengthy descriptions concerning well known facts that have not much to do with the Fever's universe. I am not convinced that even the American readers need a remainder that Great Britain, where Mac travels on some point, consists of more than one island.

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