Dark Desire - Christine Feehan

Ever since i finished Dark Prince a few months back I've been wanting to continue reading the Carpathian books, this rereading challenge seemed just the perfect opportunity!! And as soon as I started reading it I was again under the spell of Feehan's writing.

The stranger silently summons her from across the continents, across the seas. He whispers of eternal torment, of endless hunger...of dark, dangerous desires. And somehow American surgeon Shea O'Halloran can feel his anguish, sense his haunting aloneness, and she aches to heal him, to heal herself. Drawn to the far Carpathian mountains, Shea finds a ravaged, raging man, a being like no other. And her soul trembles. For in his burning eyes, his icy heart, she recognizes the beloved stranger who's already become part of her. This imperious Carpathian male compels Shea to his side. But is she to be his healer...or his prey? His victim...or his mate? Is he luring her into madness...or will his dark desire make her whole?

Once again she gives us a strong heroine, a doctor this time, and a very damaged Carpathian male. Shea is a doctor who has been hiding a secret, she believes she has a blood disorder inherited from the father she never knew. She also has psychic habilities which have made her aware of a man being tortured. She could feel his pain but she could not help. Now 7 years after she is determined to find and save him. Jacques discovered while being tortured that he could connect with a woman, in his disoriented state he believed her responsible for his pain and is now determined to bring her to him and make her pay.

This book is about Shea and Jacques but it's also about setting up the world and the rules that we will revisit in future books. In that sense the love story suffers a bit. There are more than just the 2 of them on center stage for a big part of the book but that didn't slow me down as I really wanted to know more about Carpathians in general. Shea and Jacques are both very damaged characters, she was ignored by her mother for most of her life and became an orfan at 18 when the mother felt she could be on her own and killed herself. Jacques used to be one of younger Carpathians light and more care free as he still remembered his emotions but 7 years of torture have changed him and made him almost insane. After he realises Shea is trying to help him she becomes his only link with sanity as he doesn't even recognise Mickail and Gregori as family and friend.

I really like the Carpathian society we are still getting to know about here. One thing that is clear from the beginning is how children and women are loved and cherished and how wrong it was that Shea couldn't have that. Knowing how a female child is important to the men makes the baby Raven is expecting even more important. Feehan even deals with the subject that some females wont have a choice in who their lifemates will be but the scenes where Gregori and the baby interact are so lovely and tender that one just ends up wishing for their book to come quickly. As I finished the first book anxious to start the second I now finish this one eager for the next. But I, that am no fan of vampires, consider them such comfort reads that I'll be saving them for a special moment.

Another interesting thing about Feehan's storytelling is how she gets us all interested in characters that haven't even shown up yet. But after hearing about them I'm looking forward to Aidan, Lucian, Dimitri and the others stories... Yep I love Carpathians!!

Grade: B+