Darkfever

Dear Hype, Why have you failed me? Again.



I wanted to like this book. KMM has a flare for writing potentially addicting stories. The Fae and the murder mystery were intriguing... BUT there were a lot of things that did not sit well with me.

> I couldn't get into Mac's ingénue southern belle persona. She had no common sense. Her sister was recently murdered yet she spent an awful lot thinking about her looks, nail polish, outfits, hunky guys, describing them in painful details. WHY? She also had no survival instinct. She kept putting herself in dangerous situations, situations she could have easily avoided. She kept secrets from Barrons even after agreeing to live in his house and become his artifacts detector. I'm not saying that she should have trusted him, but not telling him she met V'lane was a very bad idea. She might have avoided the “incident” at the museum. Her inner monologues were quite annoying. She often sounded, well, vapid and half-witted. I do not understand the love for her. Let's get a peak at her train of thought, shall we?

[...]Rocky O'Bannion was a lodestone, six feet of pure muscle-packed charisma. He was the kind of man men wanted to be and women wanted to be dragged off to bed by—and I did mean dragged off—there would be no dominating this man by any woman. There was no doubt in my mind that the powerful, ruggedly attractive Irishman with the stone-hewn jaw was also a stone-cold killer, and from the way he was trying to pave his way to heaven by plastering over his sins with the putty of religious zeal, he was also a borderline psychopath. Yet none of it diminished my attraction to him one bit—that was the true measure of the man's presence. [...]if those dark, heavy-lidded eyes would turn with favor in my direction, I was afraid I would flush with pleasure even as I knew I should be running as fast as I could the other way[...]

She's talking here about some mobster that allegedly killed at least 27 people who were his rivals, including pregnant women. She probably would've loved Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson when they were young.

> Then we have Jericho Barrons. I'm puzzled. I understand that he's handsome and all but he's a cold-hearted bruises machine. He is abusive both psychically and verbally. The things he says and does are way past teasing. During one of their first encounters he pushes her against the wall, threatens her and chokes her. What a prince! Then the way he treats her when they're on and about parties looking for artifacts is so disturbing. Actually it's not only Barrons, but all the men in this book treat women like objects at their disposal. It is frightening. I guess I need to accept that a lot of ladies out there have some deep dark fantasies. Barrons seems pretty abusive to me, but whatever floats your boat, I can't tell you what you can find romantic or not. But it's kinda ironic that quite a few that swoon over Jericho Barrons, gave “Fifthy Shades of Grey” and “Twilight” a one star rating and not just for the writing but because the male protagonists were abusive. Sure, one could say that Jericho is better than Grey and Edward. But is he really? On the same note, the same ladies were distressed at the results of the American election saying it's because Trump is amongst others a chauvinistic pig. But he's old and ugly, it's not the same, right? I wonder if the reaction would've been the same if Trump looked like the guys in this book.

> And finally we have V'lane. Why are Death-by-sex Fae a thing, why? You couldn't have toned it down a bit, Moning? I thought Darkfever was supposed to be a paranormal romance. Not abuse smut.

Sure the apocalypse-by-fae is an entertaining idea, but I can't ignore that this book has some really disturbing messages. I read some spoilers for the following books and it only gets worse. I will not continue with this series.