Review - Darkfever (Fever, Book 1) by Karen Marie Moning (4/5 stars)

This is the first book in the five book Fever series by Moning.  The fifth book "Shadowfever" is scheduled to release in January of 2011.  I enjoyed this first book in the series, although you can tell the purpose of this book is mainly to introduce us to Mac and the world she's been thrust in to.

MacKayla Lane, Mac to her friends, is your typical southern belle Barbie-doll type.  She loves shopping, scoping out hot guys, and dressing in pink.  Then she finds out that her sister, who is studying abroad in Dublin, has been brutally murdered.  With the Dublin police poised to set aside the case for lack of evidence, Mac decides to travel out to Dublin and do some investigating of her own.  She finds out that she barely knew what her sister was really up to in Dublin; her sister had gotten involved something dark and deadly.  Now Mac is being drawn into the darkness too.  Mac finds out she is a Null, a very rare type of Fae Seer....and unfortunately Fae don't like Nulls.  Now with most of paranormal Dublin out to kill her Mac will need the assistance of the dark and dangerous Jericho Barrons if she is going to survive long enough to hunt down her sister's killer.  So good-bye pink high heels and hello black sneakers...Mac's got some Fae to kill.

If you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer you will enjoy this book.  It really has that same type of vibe going on; pretty blond fashion obsessed girl finds out that she is destined to fight evil dark bad things.  Mac comes off as a bit ditsy, fluffy, and naive in the beginning on the book; but as the story continues we start to see a tough core of bravery and stubbornness.  Barron is everything you could hope for in a hero; tough, complex, mysterious, seriously bad-ass, and of course gorgeous.

Moning does a great job of writing a well-rounded novel.  The surrounding descriptions are very good, so you can easily picture the surroundings.  The characters are complex and interesting, with many shades of grey to their personalities.  The action scenes are well done too.  Of course, time is taken to describe Mac's colorful outfits, which soothes the fashionista in me.  The world-building is creative, fantastic, and very engaging.  There is definitely some dark humor throughout the book, which lightens things up and keeps them from getting too dark.

The story was hard to put down and made for a quick read.  There is a lot of mystery to be solved and this mystery really keeps you turning pages.  This book does wrap up the main storyline of Mac finding her sister's killer, but it doesn't resolve it.  In fact you are left with a pretty big cliffhanger.  I think if I had read this book when it was first released I would be pissed at how the story ends.  Luckily I have the next three books already, so I don't have to wait to continue the story.  My recommendation would be to buy the second book with the first one so that you don't have to wait to find out what happens.

I was a bit leery about reading a series of books written by a prominent romance author.  I shouldn't have worried though...this book is not a romance it is a great dark urban fantasy.  All in all it is a pretty dark story with lots of creepy gross evil Fae.  It is definitely a read for a mature audience; there are a couple almost rape scenes and some sexual situations as well as quite a bit of swearing.

Overall I thought this was a strong urban fantasy and I really enjoyed it.  It didn't absolutely blow me away, like Ilona Andrew's Kate Daniels series did or Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock series did, but it was engaging and interesting.  This book was very much an introduction book and I have a feeling that the story will grow in complexity and interest with the next book in the series, Bloodfever.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- The 100+ Book Reading Challenge