Dark Destiny

June 28, 2004
Prolific Feehan (Dark Melody
, etc.) continues her supernatural Dark series with this 13th installment, the first to feature a female Carpathian. Though Carpathians roam the streets at night and gain strength from feeding on blood, they only kill evildoers and vampires. Transformed into a night creature when she was a child, Destiny is unlike any of Feehan's previous heroines. Her physical strength is equal to that of her Carpathian counterpart, Nicolae Von Shrieder, but she's horrified by what she is and haunted by memories of her parents' brutal murder. Nicolae merged his mind with hers when she was first transformed, and through their mental connection, he taught her how to survive. Now Nicolae must find Destiny and make her his lifemate, or he will succumb to darkness and become a vampire. Feehan's protagonists and prose can be overwrought ("His body was hard and full, aching for her.... and deep within, the crouching beast lifted its head and roared for release"), and inconsistencies litter the text (Destiny can supposedly read Nicolae's mind, but it takes her eons to trust him and stop threatening to kill him). However, the story has sufficient sensuality to keep readers sated, and fans should appreciate Feehan's unusual pairing of two Carpathians. Agent, Helen McGrath.

July 1, 2004
Destiny saw her family slain by a vampire, who then raped her and turned her into one of the undead. But through a telepathic link with Nicolae, a member of the Carpathians, who hunt vampires, she survives, and becomes fond of her Seattle neighbors. Then, as she drags Mary Ann, a woman who rescues battered women, into a church to save her from a vampire, Destiny discovers that she herself is not a vampire because she can enter holy ground and see herself in a mirror. Nicolae, who has been seeking his life mate for centuries, finally finds her, and together they fight to save the neighborhood from evil both vampiric and human. This out-of-the-ordinary romance is deeply sensuous with exquisitely detailed lovemaking and equally vivid paranormal battle scenes involving shape-shifting, running up walls, heaving fireballs, and dragons erupting from the earth. Although this is part of Feehan's popular Dark series, it's quite accessible to readers new to the world of the Carpathians.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)