Dark Gold [Paperback]

My co-worker was an avid fan of Christine Feehan's work, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Dark Gold is apparently the third in the "Dark" series, but my co-worker recommended it as her favorite. Though the setting links the various novels, they can be read independently of each other without confusion. Her latest installment in the series, Dark Symphony, just came out this week.

Each book tells the tale of a particular "Carpathian male" and his future "life-mate" as they find one another and overcome various obstacles on the way to spending the rest of eternity together. In essence, the Carpathians are a race of predatory, immortal humans. Over the centuries, the number of Carpathian women has dwindled and the males have been forced to wander for eons in search of a life-mate. A life-mate is the only thing that can assuage their savage nature and ensure they they do not succumb to the dark side and turn vampire.

Very few human women have the mental fortitude to survive the transformation into a Carpathian, so most of these guys must wait for a long time. Imagine all that pent up sexual frustration! Fortunately for them, they cannot feel strong emotion (or even see in color) until they meet that special someone. In this particular novel, we bear witness to the romance of Alexandria Houton and Aidan Savage.

I, personally, found much lacking in this book. There was a lot of sexual tension and very little plot. They spend most of the book in Aidan's house while Alexandra undergoes her transformation and then Aidan tries to convince her that she is not damned for all time. Very little actually happens in this book. I was bored to tears halfway through it and even the forthcoming steamy sex scenes couldn't completely overcome my apathy.

The characters were one-dimensional. They did not undergo any real growth during the course of events. This is particularly true of Alexandria, who spends most of the book being defiant and then suddenly changes her tune in time for the books climax. Apparently the sex really was that good! Unfortunately, the most interesting character, Aidan's mentor, doesn't appear until the end and is only present for a few scenes.

All in all, there was plenty of sex and much of it was suitably animalistic. Ms. Feehan has a firm grasp on the necessary romance novel terminology; the sexual tension and sexual encounters were well done. Unfortunately, I like a little more substance to my stories, even in the context of a romance novel.

Aidan Savage had volunteered to leave his beloved Carpathian mountains to hunt the vampires in San Francisco and its surrounding area. He had lived for so long without a life mate that he didn't believe his eyes when he started to see color and feel emotion in Alexandria's presence. He knew that Alexandria was afraid of him, but could never let her go. Aidan tried to ease Alexandria into her life as a Carpathian, but she defied him at every turn - demanding that they drop her brother off at school even though the sun was exquisitely painful, going out on a date with Thomas Ivan and continuing to work with him, refusing to take his blood until forced, in short, doing everything in her power to deny what she had become. How long would Aidan be able to be patient with his beloved Alexandria before she would finally accept who and what she truly was?

I really liked Aidan's character and thought that he made a nice change from Ms. Feehan's other heroes. For one thing, Aidan is blonde, where all the other Carpathians are dark, and he seems to have keep more light in his soul than the other men in the Dark series. He is very playful and patient with Alexandria. Aidan also has a human family who have cared for him for generations, a son or daughter always choosing to stay on and to take care of his house and other affairs while he is resting during the day. The only problem was that Aidan was such a strong personality that all of the other characters seemed to pale in comparison. I would have liked Alexandria to be a richer character, less superficial, but I did like her. This was a great addition to the Dark series and I enjoyed the new setting as well as the new kind of hero. Keep up the great work Ms. Feehan!