Customer Reviews

Dark Fire

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

DARK FIRE by Christine Feehan

All Carpathian males, must find their lifemates before they turn vampire or greet the dawn. Without a lifemate, the males no longer see in color, feel pain or experience emotions. A lifemate is the light to their dark. She is the keeper of his heart and the keeper of his soul. Dark Fire is the 6th book in Christine Feehan's Carpathian series, and without a doubt, I favor this book because of Darius 'blushes'

Darius, the youngest of the Daratrazanoff brothers, has yet to find his lifemate, and is so close to the end, he continues to distance himself from his family of 'lost children', until the evening he returns to their campsite to find Tempest 'Rusti' Trine, a fiery red-haired auto mechanic and his lifemate. For close to 1000 years, Darius has been the leader and family patriarch, watching over, protecting, fighting vampires and resigning himself to a life of loneliness 'one without a treasured and necessary mate to save his soul. But the life he once knew, is about to be turned upside down and sideways, and one fraught with anxiety, laughter and love. He finds love and life in another lost soul-one who will challenge his leadership, his arrogance and his patience-Tempest is the lifemate he never expected and will die for, in order to protect her.

As independent as Tempest is, her life has been difficult-raised by drug addicts, who exposed the young child to the dirty underworld of neglect and addiction, she ran away, only to find that there are those you can trust and those who will take advantage of a young woman. Not without her own talent to 'read' and 'speak' with the animals, Tempest is not surprised by the world of the Carpathians. Their need to feed, go to ground to heal and sleep, as well their ability to shape shift, speak telepathically, and create the necessities to survive, from the earth around, do not push Tempest away, but the love of a man, has her running for her life and away from the only person who would destroy everything to protect her and cherish her beyond life itself.

Darius is placed in the precarious position to continuously rescue Tempest from the almost comedic and life-threatening situations she seems to find. When a reporter, Matt Brodrick threatens to expose Desari, Julian and the other members of the band as vampires, Tempest takes it upon herself to defend her new family against a campaign to rid the world of evil vampires, and finds herself injured, bleeding and once again, running from the only man, who has sworn his protection and love. When Tempest boards a bus, bound for any place but where she is, Darius is beyond exasperation, and must claim, the only woman, who can save his soul.

Following a trip into town to buy supplies, Tempest is approached by Cullen Tucker, a man once associated with the group of extremists, trying to capture and destroy the Carpathians, but who is now, risking his own life, to save Tempest and her new family. Knowing Cullen has more information that could aid Darius and the others, Tempest must bring this human, back to camp, and risk exposing everyone, to the humans they have been trying to avoid for 100's of years.

Throughout the storyline, we see Syndil, trying desperately to friend Tempest and guide her through the ever-increasing changes, much to the chagrin of Barack. But unbeknownst to Syndil, and many of the others, Barack is her lifemate. He has never lost his emotions or colors, but has been waiting a lifetime to claim his mate. Due to a horrific assault by one of their own 'brothers' , who had turned vampire, Syndil is slowly recovering from the rape and near-death experience. Barack's patience snaps, when Syndil approaches Cullen, looking for friendship and a male companion.

When Darius and Tempest are left behind by the other band members, they are attacked by vigilante terrorists, seeking to expose and destroy the family. With only a severely injured Darius to guide her, Tempest must find her way to the other family members, driving the tour bus over rough terrain and through a storm of fierce Carpathian pride. When they are finally rescued, and Darius must go to ground to heal, Tempest declares her love for Darius, and offers her life for his.

But it is not until an ill-fated kidnapping attempt of Tempest, that, once again leaves Darius injured and bleeding, do we see Tempest's true devotion and love for this man. She willingly gives of herself and her blood, to save his life. When he awakens to the sound of his dying mate, Darius must complete the blood exchange, and claim Tempest as his lifemate for all time.

Dark Fire is one of my favorite Christine Feehan storylines. I fell madly in love with Darius from the moment he saw his lifemate, and had no idea what to do with her. He was a man lost in a world of need and longing, and a world he knew nothing about. There are many humorous passages involving Tempest and her 'inability' for find her way home, but overall, their story of love and passion, is what draws me to this storyline''..everytime.

This is the sixth book in Christine Feehan's Carpathain Dark series, and after devouring it in a single day, it's now my favorite of the series (it's hard to just pick one favorite because they are all stellar)! This book took my break away. Darius is beyond magnificent, and Tempest has a wonderful quirky personality. This book is romantic, sexual, hot, loving, exciting, and I hung on every word. So did my blood pressure. It's a true love story. Don't be swayed by the complaints that some reviewers have made about this book; they just don't get it. They don't get what the Carpathian lore is all about, the scorching passion, the undying allegience, the overwhelming need the males have to protect their lifemates at any cost. It's pure romance in its most basic form, meant to be savored and cherished. Christine Feehan's books are about women being cherished by men who are strong enough to move the earth for them -- literally. Don't miss this book.

I absolutely love Ms. Feehan's Dark Series, but Dark Fire is my favorite! I finally had to buy her books.

Dark Fire is book #6 in the Carpathian series. Thus far it has become my favorite. The reason for this is due in large part to Tempest. In the preceding books the idea of freedom of choice has become somewhat of a myth to the Carpathian men when it relates to potential lifemates. While the thought of taking what you want seems like a novel idea, when it pertains to a person it chafes. I genuinely enjoyed the chemistry between Darius and Tempest. I believed in her struggle to overcome the mental boundaries that prohibit her from entirely embracing a new lifestyle. Darius' reasoning on his potential mortality and Tempest's ultimate choice are what make this book a standout. If you are curious to find out what these choices are, I encourage you to pick up this book. It makes for a quick bedtime read

This book wanted to be great. Feehan wants to write very descriptive, entrancing books, which she sets the stage for in the first 20 pages or so, but then the plot stagnates. There is no foreward momentum. Just the same feelings, the same argument described OVER and OVER. Just when you think she is going to explore a new avenue, she sticks with the tried and overused. I read the whole book because I really liked the premise and some portions of the book truely could spark my imagination but in the end I left the book frustrated and growling. Also I believe you could diagnosis some sort of relationship dysfuction in Darius. Everytime he called Rusti "Baby" or "Honey" it made my skin crawl. Big strong tough man needs to reduce his lover to the status of a child in his mind in order to gain control of her. Rusti's character was strong, self sufficient, reslient in the face of all of lifes adversities and her reduced her to "baby, honey, sweetie". When he took over her self control, I felt defeated too. Its one thing to tame the iron-willed female, that is sexy, but to outright squash her into submission is lame.

Since reading Dark Challenge, I've looked forward to reading about Darius's book because he was so hailed as "one of the most powerful", "maybe even more so than Gregori"...
Well, I find the author's efforts to downplay one of her only hero that I like to pitch her newest hero, not only nauseating but extremely disappointing. And that injury might have been overlooked if Darius was truely what she said he might be, what we all expected him to be from reading him in DC. But it was a huge disappointement. Instead her effort to glorify Darius not only did not succeed but downplay all the other Carparthian males.
Dark Fire certainly had no fire, no heart. It was extremely formulaic, the only time the book drew my interest was when it mentioned the other characters of the book.
The reason I gave this book 2 stars instead of 1 despite the lack of fire and individuality, it still had some humor. And it sets the background for the 2 books that comes afterward of the story of the ancient twins. I find it EXTREMELY disappointing that Gregory, Mikhail, and Aidan's names were mere mentions in here. Their presence and reactions to the long-thought-lost group of Carpathians would have been one of the few rare things that would make this book worth reading.

I had just read Maggie Shayne's Twilight Hunger and really liked that one so I wanted to find another author that wrote the same type of story. So I decided to pick this book up. I generally read romance, or romantic-suspense and wasn't sure I would be able to get into this type of story. Boy, was I wrong. I started it at 6pm and stayed up until 1am to finish it! I absolutely loved the story. Rusti was one of the most enjoyable heroines I have read about in quite a while. She was this independant woman who was used to being along and then she comes accross Darius this overbearing, controlling man who tried to run her life. I enjoyed the way they constantly butted heads. There were some amusing scenes as well as some that were just sweet. I enjoyed every character that was in this book and thought that they all added to the overall enjoyment of the book.

I look forward to reading the rest of the books in the "dark" series and must say that I will definitely be watching out for more books written by this author.

This is the most ridiculous book I have ever read.The characters and situation are not very believable.The writing skills are very poor except when the sex scenes arrive.There it goes into to much and detail and reduces the book from 2 star to 1 star.The filthiest book I have ever read and will read.I was deeply unimpressed by this book and how it got to be a best-seller amazes me.

Romance novels are a repetitive genre -- the same things happen, but the details change slightly; namely, the girl's name, the guy's name and profession, etc.

If you're after a series with continued character development, and more and deeper revelations about the vampire universe, this isn't it. This is a romance series, with a fairly original formula: Guy Carpathian finds gifted human soulmate, who after resisting him, leads him to redemption. Guy Carpathian saves her from bad guys a couple of times. It's a pretty good formula, but the books are _strictly_ formula. Even the love scenes are basically identical from book to book.

So if you want depth/character development/insight with some romance, you should avoid these, and stick to J.D. Robb, Laurell Hamilton and Charlaine Harris. But Feehan is writing romances around a unique formula. If you like formula romances, you will probably enjoy these greatly.

The story lacks mention and history of the other characters - how could you not mention to Tempest that Raven was human, hello!
The author should have just called her Rusti, it was a much better name.
I could see the Barrack Sindyl thing coming a mile away in the last book.
I'd like to read about Julian & Desari's visit to Aidan & Alex who I loved, not just read a passing sentence that they went. And I'd like to read about Gregory & Darius meeting, and Barrack & Sindyl's visit to Carpathia to meet Prince Mikhail. The author does a disservice to her loyal readers not to keep those characters alive.
OK! OK! I get the idea - light to his darkness, lifemates, three blood exchanges, human psychic women, the male suddenly sees things in color again, dirt & saliva heals, feed but don't kill, sleep in the ground, shapeshift, etc. The plots are so repetitive I could be reading the same books since Dark Gold. Independent gorgeous woman rebels against the dominant sexy Carpathian male. After a few romantic interludes she falls deeply in love and is now 100% devoted. About two thirds into the novel, suspense of the story kicks in and it becomes a thriller at the end where they're threatened and attacked either by an ancient vampire or some fanatic vampire hunters.
The honey baby stuff was cloying.