Dark Gold

Non riesce, questo terzo libro della saga Dark, ad eguagliare i suoi predecessori.
Alex è una protagonista molto più "concreta" e con problemi più realistici delle altre due precedenti donne speciali. Ha una famiglia a cui rendere conto e non può, e non vuole, di punto in bianco sparire dalla circolazione per soddisfare le voglie di un uomo, per quanto sexy possa essere.
Da questo punto di vista la Feehan sembra aver raggiunto un nuovo livello di maturità narrativa.

Quello che, purtroppo, rovina un po' il romanzo è Aidan che, invece di affascinare come i suoi fratelli carpeziani, ci irrita quasi fino a alla fine del romanzo.
Quello che stizzisce in questo Cacciatore è, non tanto il maschilismo, ma quanto il suo manipolare ed usare il show more fratello minore della ragazza per possederla. Dal mio punto di vista non fa niente di diverso dal Vampiro che all'inizio assale la donna sfruttando la sua paura di perdere il fratellino.
Aidan gioca e pasticcia con la mente del bambino, dice per proteggerlo dal trauma subito all'inizio del libro quando la sorella è stata assalita dal Vampiro, ma in realtà fa molto di più! Suggerisce idee, manipola il ragazzino e se lo rigira come vuole, mettendolo - anche se giocosamente - contro la sorella. Fanno fronte comune nel tenere Alex segregata e la manipola, intrappolandola grazie al suo amore per il fratellino che, chissà perchè, stravede per il Cacciatore. E grazie tante!

Irrita il suo uso snodato della telepatia, a senso unico fino a quasi la fine del romanzo, per avere la meglio sulle reticenze della donna che si ritrova un uomo che anticipa ogni sua mossa, smonta ogni sua obiezione e non ha neanche un po’ di privacy mentale.

Negli altri libri, il lato autoritario del maschio veniva a scontrarsi unicamente con la forza (o testardaggine) della donna. Se la vedevano solo loro due, uno contro l'altro, e la resa di uno dei due era dovuta solo e unicamente dalla capacità dell'altro di abbattere le paure e le resistenze dell'altro membro della coppia. Era, anche se solo superficialmente, un duello alla pari.

In questo romanzo abbiamo visto Alex combattere come mai, stare male e distruggersi per amore di un fratellino che era, fin dall'inizio, piegato dal giochetto mentale di Aidan. Lei ha combattuto veramente, per il suo bene e per se stessa, dalla prima all'ultima pagina ma erano combattimenti vuoti. Mai, neanche per un istante ha avuto possibilità di scelta, in nessun caso. Nemmeno l'illusione di poter combattere e avere la meglio sul suo compagno, magari negandogli un po' di sesso!

Niente. Sottomessa dalla prima pagina, benché contro il suo volere, ad Aidan, mentalmente e fisicamente.

E' stato così irritante, molte volte, che avremmo voluto prendere a calci Aidan e suo diavolo di egocentrismo. Cosa mai accaduta con i maschi carpeziani precedenti che, benché sicuri della predestinazione delle sue compagne, avevamo sempre e comunque l'umiltà di temere che queste avrebbero potuto fare qualcosa per abbandonarli, magari riuscendoci.
O meglio, è stata l'autrice a concedere loro qualche piccolo spazio di manovra all'interno della coppia.
Con Alex e Aidan questo non si è verificato, abbiamo visto una donna combattere fino alla distruzione mentale, ma farlo contro un muro invalicabile visto che non le era rimasto nulla da tenere minimamente sottocontrollo, né mente né corpo. È stato quasi doloroso.
Maschilista oltre ogni previsione e impossibile da "amare" questo Aidan. show less

I can't do it anymore. [Poke poke eyes.]

And I can't even tear the book up because it's an ebook...

This book is even worse than the first book. All the way to page 80 (of 182) and it's still: the woman:'I can't do this, I'm not evil' and the man 'you're my lifemate and I'll teach you' - which, translated, means he'll use his masculine power (a.k.a. penis, though of course it's not called that in this book, it's usually the 'masculine power behind his zipper') to take her virginity.

Of course, intermixed with all this is her uselessness and frailty and waffling from minute to minute and his strength to help and support and 'teasingly mock her with his masculine mind' because that's what real men are supposed to do.

It's just crappy writing, show more and crappy characterizations, and the author relies on stereotypes so she doesn't have to put any thought into her writing.

Skip this series - go read the Black Dagger Books which have very similar themes, only written so it doesn't stink of cheese. show less

In the third book of the Dark/Carpathian series, Alexandra Houton can sense evil in the air. After a deranged man kidnaps her and her much younger brother Joshua, she doubts she’ll survive the night. The man bit her, gave her his blood, and chained her to a sea cave wall, but she intends to help Josh escape. When a golden-haired man kills the vampire, she doesn’t know if he’s her savior or his next target.
Aiden Savage is on the lookout for five vampires who have been killing humans in his city of San Francisco. When he finds Alex and Josh, he believes the poor human woman, now insane, will kill the child. But one good look at her and he knows different. He can see color, emotions overwhelm him, and he knows he’s found his show more lifemate. Though the vampire started her conversion, Aiden finishes it. Alex, however, wants nothing to do with her new life, and the family Aiden never knew he desperately wanted might just be out of reach.
I really liked Aiden. He’s arrogant, bossy, patient, overprotective, and demanding as most of the Carpathian males in this series are. I couldn’t relate to Alexandra. Though she’s gone through a traumatic experience, I couldn’t understand why she refused to believe Aiden when he only wanted to protect her. When she finally accepted the truth that she was no longer human and that Aiden wouldn’t hurt her, I started to like her more.
Unlike the previous two books and several of the following books, the cast of secondary Carpathian characters is minimal. Gregori is the only one who shows up in this book, and his role is fairly small.
Though I liked the story, it doesn’t tie in with the other books or further the overall series arc. So, in that case, it works great as a standalone, but a reader could skip it and not miss anything that would happen in the next book.
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So I am kicking off my Read All The Books! Challenge by starting on my Christine Feehan backlog. I started the Carpathians series a while ago... but I got intimated by the number of books and the mindset that I would never get caught up! And now that I waited so long between reads, I am kinda thinking I should have started over at the beginning. I can't remember anything from the first two books. Hmmm... dilemma. Should I go back and re-read the first two?

Our millenia-old Carpathian in this book is Aidan Savage... and he lived up to his name. He was wonderfully deliciously savage because his beast was so very close to the surface. Aidan was very close to that edge, the point where the Carpathian falls over into the dark side and becomes show more a murderous gluttonous vampire. The only saving grace for Carpathians is to find their fated female, the one that helps them feel emotion and see colors again. Aidan was a great hero, I totally loved him and have not one negative thing to same about his character, personality or behavior. I thought he treated the heroine extremely well, even when she was being overly difficult. He was sweet and caring to the heroine's little brother, and he genuinely cared about the employees working in his household. He was super patient with Alexandria, placating her way beyond what I would have been willing to do. Plus with his striking (and dangerous) golden looks just made him the perfect package for a fangastic hero.

When we first meet Alexandria Houton, she is a human artist or graphic designer going on a job interview... and leaving her little brother to be watched by a homeless guy in the parking lot. It's not as bad as it sounds (I hope) because it seemed like they knew the guy and this was not an uncommon occurrence. Aidan saves Alexandria and Joshua from a rogue vampire who desired to make her into evil life mate... and it was from about that point on that I started hating Alexandria. She was never really grateful to Aidan for saving her life, for providing her and Joshua a home, or for anything else he did. She lived in a ridiculous state of denial... wanting to hang on to her humanity no matter the consequences (even when they were deadly). But what really got my goat was her decision to go out with the greasy gamemaker dude just to spite Aidan. She wasn't attracted to the guy and already knew that his attention made her skin crawl... so why is she trying to force it. That just ticked me off. After all of that, it was going to be nearly impossible for Alexandria to redeem herself in my eyes. While I was glad things settled down (or heated up so to speak) between her and Aidan... it was a little to late for me to become a fan of the heroine.

Needless to say this was a combative relationship. Things don't settle between our couple until pretty late in the story. While I don't mind these slow burn situations, I prefer them to be a little less hostile. I was cheering for Aidan to claim his female and banish the dark beast that wanted to take over, so I was glad he got his HEA in the end. The side plot involving rogue vampires provided a good distraction from some of Alexandria's behavior, and I enjoyed getting a glimpse into Gregor, who is even closer to the edge than Aidan. I have a feeling that Gregor is going to have another difficult female on his hands... so I am crossing my fingers that she comes to her senses earlier than Alexandria did.

I was so happy to find that most of this series is available in audio on Hoopla. It seems that is really the only way I can get in my "personal" reading these days because I have poor impulse control when filling up my blog reading schedule. I wasn't crazy about the narrator for this installment... he was kind of Dracula-esque if you know what I mean. I was waiting for him to come out with an "I vant to suck yur blud." His portrayal of Alexandria didn't do her any favors... I found the voice that he gave her to be too high-pitched and grating. This is often how I feel with male narrators for some reason... I just can't buy into their female affectations. But when he wasn't channeling Dracula, I did like his interpretation of Aidan and Joshua.

I'll be back with my next Carpathian read in a couple weeks. Stay tuned!

3.5 stars / 3 flames. Full review posted at Bambi Unbridled.
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Aidan has the patience of a saint, and Alexandria is dumber than a box of rocks. Nevertheless, this was a likable entry in the series. it does relatively little to push forward the series arc plot, but does cameo Gregori to show more of his character, and give some important setup for his book. We get to see Aidan's human servant family, and they're pretty awesome. We get to see some nice ghoul action, and creepy vampire shenanigans.

This is Aidan Savage and Alexandria's story.

An important job interview for Alexandria Houton ended in a nightmare. Witnessing a vampires destruction and then being taken by him along with her younger brother Joshua, Alex had no idea what this monster wanted with her. The appearance of Aidan Savage did not make her feel any better. He seemed to be the same kind of monster and his treatment of her wasn’t much better. They had both done awful things to her that made her feel pain, but Aidan had taken her and her brother to his house and seemed to be caring for her. All Aidan had know for centuries was his loneliness, his dark existence, but as he went to finish off the monsters he realized that the women gave him color. Could this be his lifemate? Realizing too late, he knew that show more the vampire had already started the change in her and he needed to finish the change, with his own blood. As with all Carpathians, the first priority was to keep his lifemate safe, and in this case, her brother too. Alex thought she had a to be caught in the nightmare still, the things this beautiful man said to her, it could not be true. She still wanted to be human even if she was starting to believe it wasn’t true.

Book 3 - Another example of this addictive series. Alex's sarcasm and defiance was fun to watch, but Aidans frustrations over her was more fun. After meeting Aidan (Dark Desire) it was nice to see his interaction with his human family and the way he took to Josh. Alex made a rather quick change from disbelief to acceptance and seeming to understanding everything. Didn’t talk about Alex’s psychic abilities much, but I enjoyed to contrast between Carpathian and vampire as well as the chance to see Gregori again, so much more information about that ancient, I am excited his story is coming. show less

This book is probably my favorite story out of the dark series. It is a fun book that tells the story of a young woman struggling to take care of herself and her little brother. After her parents died tragically she is forced to assume both roles of mother and father to her brother and expected to somehow put food on the table. While landing an important job interview the young woman is attacked by a rouge vampire. I will not give away the rest of the story, but I adore this story and have read it about 3 times! My copy is actually starting to fall apart. There is action, adventure, and a little sex thrown in. The only problem that I have with the book is that the Carpathians don't actually exist! That is just a tragedy in itself. I show more highly recommend this book and can confidently say that I am positive you will enjoy this book as much as I did. show less