Review: Shadowfever
January 31st, 2011 Filed under: sample wills — Estate Planning Author
Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes its good.
MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever.
Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sisters murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years.
What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the Sinsar Dubha book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds.
In an epic battle between humans and Fae, the hunter becomes the hunted when the Sinsar Dubh turns on Mac and begins mowing a deadly path through those she loves.
Who can she turn to? Who can she trust? Who is the woman haunting her dreams? More important, who is Mac herself and what is the destiny she glimpses in the black and crimson designs of an ancient tarot card?
From the luxury of the Lord Masters penthouse to the sordid depths of an Unseelie nightclub, from the erotic bed of her lover to the terrifying bed of the Unseelie King, Macs journey will force her to face the truth of her exile, and to make a choice that will either save the world . . . or destroy it.
From the Hardcover edition.
A Letter from Author Karen Marie Moning
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Review:
Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning (Book Five/Finale)
This is the final book in this nearly epic “Fever” series and others have given a synopsis and have done a fine job of it. So what I’m going to do is to just give you my take on it. I just this minute finished it, and perhaps I should let it percolate or even re-read it, but I’m going to go with my gut and tell you what I am thinking right this minute with no time to hem and haw. This may even be more of a rant than a review and for that, I am sorry. I did love this book. But, I had many problems with it and on so many different levels that I don’t know where to begin.
I think that as many great authors do, Ms Moning let herself get too caught up in something that didn’t necessarily translate well into the pages of this novel. I have a thing about too much angst in what I read for pleasure. I do understand; by reading all the books in this series as well as the lesser Highlander series that gives us the background on the final players in Shadowfever, that the angst was warranted. After all our heroine Mac, has more questions about her life than “Carter has pills” and rightly so. Has anyone ever told her the truth when she asked for it? Was anything ever as they seemed? Is everything an illusion about her life…with what is happening now…what will things will become? Is she even human? Yes most of these questions are answered, but at what price? Throughout this novel, of which at least 100 pages (if not more) could have been edited out and a tighter writing style could have been used, more and more questions are raised and never truly answered in a clearly cut well defined manner. Perhaps I am just too linear in my thinking. What bothered me the most is that Mac would speak to someone and then at least one page of her asking herself questions would follow before the other character would answer. It is a clever ploy for a writer, but for this reader it is an annoying way to read. Too often I found myself skimming what should have been an exciting heart stopping read just to get to the next pertinent piece of the puzzle.
It has been brought up elsewhere that Mac’s character had become a bit of a “Mary Sue” and I defended Ms Moning’s writing and the character of Mac. We all knew that bigger things were in store for Mac and were prepared for them. I knew from the previous novels that there would be profound changes to Mac. We always knew she had something `extra’ going on. However, even I have to admit that it was sometimes just a wee to much over the top in this book. There were so many red herrings and rabbits pulled out of hats that I didn’t know if I was reading an Urban Fantasy or a comic book at times.
On the plus side it was nice to know that Barrons was finally, almost, sort of, kind of explained (if you know what I mean) – what he was and how he felt about Mac. Actually many, many things were explained, I just don’t know that they were good, solid explanations.
I’m hoping that with a re-read I will be happier with this tome than I am now. The last 10% or so of this book makes up for a lot but throws more Mary Sue-ish behavior into the mix. I would have loved a lot more action and a lot less introspection, inner dialoging and intrusive self-questioning. It pulled me too far out of the fantasy at times. In fact, I found myself on occasion looking for other ways to amuse myself, instead of finding myself engrossed in this novel as I was expecting.
Don’t get me wrong—this was not a horrible novel, I just felt it could have been and should have been so much more for a “grand finale” in a series such as this one. Trying to give this book the number of stars is difficult-the writing could have been better, there could have been some more action, but on the other hand, the characters were written to their fullest potential, Mac learned and grew even as she made myriad mistakes. The mystery was very, very mysterious and difficult to decipher and the horror aspect was perfect.
3 1/2 I really wish Amazon would change the rating system to include 1/2 stars!
