Dark Storm

What an amazing ride to take with Christine Feehan in Dark Storm. Being introduced to Dax and his life mates Riley was inspiring. The incision of the old one into their live story was brilliant and fun. As the 3 set off to rid the world of an awful evil they find love and friendship to bind them together. Well done.

What just happened?

I've read every book in the Carpathian series. Some were pretty good. Some not. But none left me thinking my book manufacturer left out 10 chapters! Seriously like they had a printing press issue and left a hundred pages out hoping no one would notice. I NOTICED! I flipped pages thinking they got the appendix/translation pages mixed up during the binging stage. I even skimmed those pages and they referenced nothing pertinent to the story! The "family tree" doesn't even reference the 2 main characters though their histories are referenced again and again. And again.

This was boring. I'm sorry to type those words. I've tried to stick with the stories. I want these poor tortured ancient warriors to find happiness. I'm rooting for them! Normally these stories are hot enough I hope no one on my lunch break spies what I'm reading over my shoulder. Lots of throbbing and pulsating...But I actually found myself tapping my fingers and sighing a little. And with 20 something books to investigate I cannot prove it, but I am quite suspicious the author just cut and pasted a previous love scene from a past book into this one. The flower scene was new but I gotta say I rolled my eyes and skipped ahead on that one and then I couldn't figure out what I'd missed. I forced myself to go back and read that stupid scene because suddenly, abruptly the story changed. The evil is vanquished. Old characters are thrown in for familiar fuzzy feelings. A conversion takes place. And I'm searching through the appendix for pages out of order.

This book was 50% off. That was not enough.

Why are all of Christine Feehan's books becoming so short? I feel like she only writes the first half of a story (caparthian couple form and fights against evil) without tying the new couple into the larger community. How about picking up the story thread from an earlier book where the prince longs for a carparthian who can connect to the earth like long ago, and actually introduce the main character to him so we can see how she can become involved in the larger community. I just feel like Christine is producing much smaller, shorter stories without connecting them to the larger story of how the species is working together to survive (and how it's progressing). This almost felt half-baked. And the ending was too neat, without any real conflict in the relationship being built. Enjoyed it, but still feel dissatisfied.