Review: Dark Predator by Christine Feehan

Dark Predator
Christine Feehan
Series: Carpathians #22
Publisher: Berkley
Published: September 6, 2011
Audio Book {13hrs}
Source: Personal Library
Genre: Paranormal
Maguarita Fernandez, Zacarias de la Cruz
Challenge: 100+
Buy the Book: Amazon

Enter the world of the Carpathians: an immortal race of beings with animal instincts whose males, without their lifemate's light, only have one option ...turning vampire. Zacarias de la Cruz has finally found his lifemate, but is it too late? Is he too close to turning into a vampire to turn back?

As brutal as the undead he hunted, Zacarias De La Cruz was a master executioner. Over the long, dark centuries, he plunged into so many battles they blurred into an endless lifetime of evil that hardened the soul of this merciless, ruthless and implacable dark predator.

Now his stark and savage journey is over. After a thousand years in a gray world, he has accomplished everything he set out to do. His brothers are safeguarded. Each has found a woman who completes them. And they are at peace. For his brothers, Zacarias has walked the edge of madness, but with centuries as a killing machine now left to the past and without a hunt to define him, Zacarias wonders, for the first time in his life, who he really is.

The answer awaits him back home in Peru , in the betrayal of a woman who is readying her trap, in the vengeance of an old enemy, in the inevitable consequences of a bloody family legacy, and in the deliverance of a lifemate he never could have imagined.

I was disappointed in this installment of the series. I really love the Carpathians, but I didn’t love Zacarias. I know he’s very very ancient, like no other, and has chosen a path of solitude, but his interaction with Maguarita was not that great to me.

His constant referring to her as a “lunatic” was not endearing although I know it was meant as an endearment. I didn’t feel that these two had any kind of depth or emotional connection. She was just his lifemate but not the love of his life. I didn’t feel that there was any more to it.

Their story I don’t feel added anything to the overall series and could have been a novella in an anthology instead of dedicating an entire book to these two. I kept stopping and starting with this one because I just couldn’t get into the two of them as a couple. I just finished this one to stay current with the series, but I think I could have skipped this one and still been able to pick up the next installment without being lost.

Definitely not my favorite of the series.

Read by Erik Bergmann, Kristine Ryan
Duration: 13 hours
Recorded Books

Narration: C-

The male narrator was okay, but the female narrator was a little whiny. I'm not sure if the narrators played a part in my dislike of this novel or not, but they did not help.

Tackle It Tuesday {19}: The Twilight Before Christmas by Christine Feehan

Tackle It Tuesday is a meme I started here, that's a play off of a similar meme of the same name hosted by Janice and Susan at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Here at the Book Obsessed version of this meme, the idea is to "tackle" books that have been sitting on your shelves collecting dust waiting to be read. Or to "tackle" those we've started, but yet to finish because life has gotten in the way. Also to help encourage blogger interaction, which is always a plus.

Anyone can participate!! Just link your posts in the comments section!


The Twilight Before Christmas
Christine Feehan
Shelved since October 2008

Seven sisters...and a legacy of magical secrets.

Bestselling novelist Kate Drake is one of seven sisters gifted with amazing powers of witchcraft. Returning home in time for her northern California town's annual Christmas pageant, Kate catches the spirit of the season and decides to open a bookstore in a charming but run-down historic mill. Decorated former U.S. Army Ranger Matt Granite, now a local contractor, doesn't mind working in the undeniably eerie house -- not if it means getting closer to Kate. There's something about the quiet, sensual woman that powerfully attracts him.

When an earthquake cracks the mill's foundation and reveals a burial crypt, Kate senses that a centuries-old evil has been unleashed and that it's coming after her. Though Matt vows to guard her from dusk till dawn, Kate knows she will have to summon all of her and her sisters' powers to battle the darkness threatening to destroy both Christmas and the gift of soul-searing passion her hometown hero wants her to keep forever....

Review: Ruthless Game by Christine Feehan

Ruthless Game
Christine Feehan {Facebook}
Series: Ghostwalkers #9
Publisher: Jove
Publication Date: November 23, 2010
Audio Book {14 hrs}
Source: Public Library
Genre: Paranormal, Romantic Suspense
Characters: Rose, Kane Cannon
Challenge: 100+, Whisper Stories
My Rating:

A woman on the run, with more to live for than she imagined, collides with a danger more lethal than she feared in the all-new Ghostwalker scorcher by #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan…

Ghostwalker Kane Cannon is pure male—animalistic, sexual, protective, instinctive—and his past missions have prepared him for anything. But his newest assignment, to rescue hostages in Mexico , plunges him into a hot zone he never anticipated: the hiding place of Rose Patterson—fugitive, ex-lover, a fellow Ghostwalker pregnant with his child.

Rose is in flight from the insidious experiments that still live in her dreams, and from the madman who’d do anything to take her child. Of all the Ghostwalkers enlisted to hunt her down, Kane is the only one she can trust. But as their passion reignites, the stakes are raised. Because Kane is now a wanted man as well. And together they’re about to face the most desperate challenge of all: staying together and staying alive.

Kane finds Rose while on a mission to recover victims of a drug cartel kidnapping. He discovers Rose pregnant with his son.

When they get separated from the rest of Kane’s team, they have to fend for themselves with the cartel hot on their trail. In the midst of all this, Kane also delivers his son when Rose goes into labor.

This one seems more action packed than the previous one, Street Game. It consists of all the players from that book as well. Rose and Kane’s relationship built onto the previous encounter they had while they were a part of Whitney’s experiments.

Although Ruthless Game may not be my favorite, I enjoyed it more than Street Game. I continue to go back to this series because I do like it overall, but there are a few misses along the way.

Read by Tom Stechschulte

Duration: 14 hours

Recorded Books

Great narration. Tom is among my favorite male narrators. He always does great, especially with the high action novels.

Review: Dark Peril by Christine Feehan

Dark Peril

Christine Feehan {Facebook}
Series: Dark #21
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Publication Date: August 31, 2010
Audio Book {14hrs}
Source: Public Library
Genre: Paranormal
Characters: Solange Sangria, Dominic
Challenge: 100+, Paranomal Romance, Whisper Stories
My Rating:

Dominic, of the Dragonseeker lineage—one of the most powerful of the Carpathian lines — is desperate to go to the very heart of the enemy camp and learn their plans. There’s only one way to do so: ingest the parasitic blood of a vampire. He knows that it is a mission from which there is no return. With little time before the blood takes effect, he’ll get the information he needs, relay it to the leader of the Carpathians, and go out fighting. There is no more honorable way to end his life.

Solange Sangria is one of the last of the jaguar people, a royal pureblood, a dying species that cannot recover from bad decisions made over hundreds of years. She has long been alone, fighting to save the remaining shapeshifters from the hands of Brodrick the Terrible: her own father, who slaughtered her family and everyone she loved. Wounded and weary, she plans one last battle, hoping to stop the man who has made an alliance with the vampires, accepting that she will not come out alive.

They are two warriors who have lived their lives alone. Now, at the end of their time, they find each other — an obstacle neither saw coming, and which neither can hope to ignore.

Solange and Dominic’s relationship began before they actually met each other. They were dream lovers of sorts, that neither believed to be real people.

Solange is a jaguar shifter and Dominic is a Carpathian of the Dragonseeker lineage. She has major trust issues when it comes to men, due to all the violence she has seen inflicted upon women by her male jaguar counterparts.

When they finally do meet, of course he’s already in love with her. He has to prove to her that is love for her is true and hot just because she’s his soulmate and has to love her because he has no choice in the matter.

Solange seemed to have a lot of issues with self esteem as well, especially when it came to be a woman, or feminine, not just a warrior. She always needed constant assurances and it became rather whiny.

As a reader I didn’t have any kind of investment in this lifemate pair other than the fact that their story is a part of the series. I would have loved to have seen appearances from past Carpathians. I always enjoy catching up with previous members of the series.

Read by Natalie Ross and Phil Gigante

Duration: 14 hours

Loved the narration by these two, but I always enjoy Phil's narration so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this one. The narrators did not hinder or decrease my enjoyment of the story.

Review: Street Game by Christine Feehan

Title: Street Game (Ghostwalkers Series, #8)

Author: Christine Feehan

Published: December 2009
Publisher: Penguin Group
Format: Audio Book
Source: Public Library
Characters: Jamie Fielding, Mack McKinley
My Rating:

Synposis:

For Mack McKinley and his team of GhostWalker killing machines, urban warfare is an art. But despite a hard-won knowledge of the San Francisco streets, Mack knows from experience that too many things can still go wrong. Danger was just another part of the game—and now he’s come face-to-face with a woman who can play just as tough.

She’s Jaimie, a woman with a sapphire stare so potent it can destroy a man. Years ago she and Mack had a history—volatile, erotic, and electric. Then she vanished. Now she’s walked back into Mack’s life, as a spy with more secrets than are good for her. Against all odds, she’s hooking up with Mack one more time to take on an enemy that could destroy them both, or bring them back together in one hot, no-holds-barred adrenaline rush.

If you follow my blog you will notice that this book stayed on my 'currently reading' list for quite a while because I would find myself constantly setting it aside. The only reason I did complete it was because it's Christine Feehan.

My major problem with this book was that I didn't know any of these people. They weren't introduced in earlier books and finally got their own story. They were complete unknowns to me. I didn't seem to form any kind of attachment to any of the characters, primary or secondary. I didn't car one way or the other about Jamie or Mack. He seemed rather cold, like there wasn't any depth to his character.

The action in this book also fell flat for me as well. It seems as if it's getting a little redundant. I hope this isn't a glimpse of what's to come for the Ghostwalker Series, because if so, it's very disappointing.