Rating: 
Summary: OK already I get it, she resists, he compels, they bond...
Review: The story lacks mention and history of the other characters - how could you not mention to Tempest that Raven was human, hello!
The author should have just called her Rusti, it was a much better name.
I could see the Barrack Sindyl thing coming a mile away in the last book.
I'd like to read about Julian & Desari's visit to Aidan & Alex who I loved, not just read a passing sentence that they went. And I'd like to read about Gregory & Darius meeting, and Barrack & Sindyl's visit to Carpathia to meet Prince Mikhail. The author does a disservice to her loyal readers not to keep those characters alive.
OK! OK! I get the idea - light to his darkness, lifemates, three blood exchanges, human psychic women, the male suddenly sees things in color again, dirt & saliva heals, feed but don't kill, sleep in the ground, shapeshift, etc. The plots are so repetitive I could be reading the same books since Dark Gold. Independent gorgeous woman rebels against the dominant sexy Carpathian male. After a few romantic interludes she falls deeply in love and is now 100% devoted. About two thirds into the novel, suspense of the story kicks in and it becomes a thriller at the end where they're threatened and attacked either by an ancient vampire or some fanatic vampire hunters.
The honey baby stuff was cloying.
Rating: 
Summary: Heated and Interesting
Review: I usually don't touch romance novels, as most of them seem to be about the same whimpering people repeatedly having sex with dark mysterious men. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of hot sex in this book, and plenty of good looking men and women, but the Gothic twist is what really interested me. It's so hard to find a nice gothic story these days, nobody ever wants to write them anymore. Feehan has mastered that art, I'm pleased to say.Darius knows Tempest is his lifemate--his other half--on first sight, which is typical for Carpathians I hear. He is alive for the first time in the hundreds of years, and all because of one short, red-haired human mechanic with an affinity for talking to animals. Instantly, he's willing to die for her, and he wants to make her his forever (and I mean that in a literal sense). Tempest, however, is very independant and is used to a solitary life. She's had problems with people all of her life, some of them particularly nasty run-ins with men. Her brain wants her to high tail the hell away from Darius, yet her body refuses to act in accordance. She does makes several attempts to run away from Darius and his family, but it's a more difficult task then she knows (meaning he chases her down with an enjoyable display of his Carpathian powers). There is the classic fear of falling in love in this story, which in my opinion is inevitable. There is no action in more than two-thirds of the book. It mainly focuses on Darius and his attempts to slowly seduce Tempest and introduce her to his world of magic and darkness. If you like gore, this book most likely wouldn't quinch your thirst. I gave it four stars mainly because the one (and only!) thing that irritated me throughout this book was the way Feehan used the same descriptions over and over. I recomend a thesarus for the author, because when I hear words like "primal" and "velvet" and "fire" over one hundred times, it tends to drive me a little berserk. Other than that, this book was GREAT!
Rating: 
Summary: Another winner.
Review: Thank you Chris for giving us another winner in the Dark series. Darius & Tempest are a fabulous couple. Darius is a lot more sweeter after he meets Tempest than he was in Dark Challenge. What is it about those Daratrazanoff men? They definately have that something extra special. It must be in their genes. It makes you wonder what their father was like, doesn't it.
Rating: 
Summary: Am I the only one bothered by this?
Review: I see a lot of reviews complaining about the formulaic plotline, but not one complaining about how utterly domineering the male lead is. He treats Tempest (that's a romance-novel name if ever I heard one) like a child, tells her what to do, and expects instant obedience. Sure, it's to "keep her safe," but isn't that the excuse men have been using to control women for most of history?
Some reviewers remarked that Tempest was stupid for trying to run away. Frankly, I think that's the smartest thing she could have done. If I were in her situation, I'd want to get away from a man like that regardless of the danger. Frankly, the whole "lifemate" situation seems nightmarish to me--all choice is taken away from the people involved, they lose their privacy, their free will, and their independence, and are tied to someone for the rest of eternity (as if a lifetime of commitment isn't intimidating enough!)
Yeah, I know...I'm taking it too seriously. It's just fantasy-fulfillment. I guess some women enjoy fantasizing about being controlled. I don't, so I can't really recommend the book.
Rating:
Summary: All the same!
Review: All the charachters in the Carpathian novels are the same - the men have 'soulless black eyes', the women have 'creamy' skin, and are totally unrealistic. no woman is truly as completely perfect as the female heroines are made out to be - we all have birthmarks, or imperfect sight, or sensitive skin. And some women are tall - we are not all so short that the hero should have to bend in two to kiss us. Personally i wear glasses and am a klutz and the fake perfection of the heroine is depressing. This heroine is the same as all the others, 'perfect' beyond the realm of mortality - isn't the point of being human is that we're flawed, if not physically then mentally or emotionally and sometimes a combination of 2 or all 3? Tempest is no different than the rest in her 'perfection', and her name is ridiculus.
Tthe men as well are all described as being very much the same, with 'soulless black eyes' and a 'demon' inside that needs to be 'kept leashed'.
there are a buncha diffrent ways to say the same thing, and hearing the same phrases applied to diffrent charachters just makes all the books that much more the same. it seems like the author is just changing the scene, time period and names of the charachters and writing the same book over and over.
all in all this book is not really that much diffrent and not really worth the time if you've read at least 3 other novels in the Dark series.
Rating:
Summary: Darius scored points
Review: I have to add my voice to the choir of other reviewers who have gotten a little tired of the redundant storyline. This book just didn't grab my attention, and consequently I found I got distracted easily and quite frequently. While I enjoyed the changes in this particular male hero (he "allowed" Tempest more freedom and choices than most of the other heroes in previous novels), and the heroine's past was interesting, I was a little disappointed. I didn't find Tempest as whinny as other people, but I did get tired of her apparent defenselessness. I realize that the point of the female lifemate is to be the exact opposite of the male (how many times have we heard "light to his darkness?"), but if she had really had such a rough life on the street, she would have learned better SURVIVAL SKILLS!... She would have been a LOT more cautious of some of the situations she had gotten herself into, and she would have been able to handle them better than she did. Another point that bothered me was her previous attack, and the more recent attempt made by the driver. This seemed like it was going to be a major point in the book, but after you hit about the halfway mark, the episodes seem to be forgotten. But, on a better note, Feehan's writing is getting better. Though she still gets repetitive, she's come a long way. The cliche you hear most in the writing critique groups is "Show, don't tell" and I wish Feehan would do more of this, but her ideas are good (if she could just come up with a bit of a different premise now that the series is well underway). I also liked the romance subplot between Barrack and Syndil, though I do wish they had had their own book. Overall, this was a pretty good book in the Dark Series, better than some (I have to admit that I was turned off for a while after reading Dark Magic) and fans of these books would probably want to read it, but if you're new to the books, go with Dark Legend or Dark Gold (my personal favs.)
Rating:
Summary: Another Winner
Review: I sat down one long weekend and read the last four books in this series. I enjoyed all of them, however the last three are the best. Darius is the rogue. His "family unit" is a lost group of chidern none of the others know about. So they don't know all the things that have been happening since they were separated from the rest. Therfore when Tempest (what a perfect name) arrives and Darius starts to see colors and feel emotion is torn between wanting to convert her and knowing that human females never survive the conversion. This is finally resolved and they come together. Ms Feehan has tackled abuse in this book and in Dark Gaurdian. Which I appauled her for doing. Now if she will bring together Darius, Gabriel and Lucian with the existing group they may solve their survival problem.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Love Story
Review: Off all the Dark Series I've read, this is the best so far, after Dark Challenge. The storyline is good and the subplots around the main characters add more substance to the book. At least in this book, Darius is not like the other Carparthians males who are super-macho, insensitive (though they claim not to be), and very demanding. Darius has real love and compassion - shown when he cried at Tempest pain during her conversion. I actually enjoyed this book and it is well-written. As for the other Dark Series, reading about how super great the males and how helpless the heroines are have become really tiresome and irritating. The subplots about the human vampire-hunters and their evilness are good supplemental thriller to the book. At least there's more to the story than on how Darius and Tempest make silly love-sick eyes to each other. I like it when Tempest continually escape his guard and tried to help. At least, she's being human. But I can't stand it when she's too wimpy in the battles. Goodness! she still feels sorry for the bad guys. She should be glad that they're dead. Anyway, overall, this book is the best so far out of all the Dark Series.
Ms. Feehan should put more substance to the vampire-fighting scenes and vampire-hunters plots in her next book. And the heroines should be more intelligent, assertive, strong and not whiny, small, irritating, and worst of all, submissive, as her previous books. The Carpathian males are great but they're too chauvistic. The females need to have more strength in their character and not submit so easily. Plus, they need to be smart and wise too.
Anyway, if Ms. Feehan doesn't improve in her next books, I will get back to reading my other choices of books like Linda Lael Miller (great vampire romances), Joanna Lindsey & Jude Devereux (great historical romances), Quinn Taylor Evans (great fantasy romances about Merlin's children), and J.R. Rowlings (great Harry Potter books).
Rating:
Summary: Heroine has no common sense!
Review: The story line of her books is somewhat repetitive, and this book is no exception. I found that towards the end of the book, I was irritated that the heroine kept making the same stupid mistakes. For example, when she is told that the bad guys are close by, she needs to rush out and look for herself when she has no means to defend herself; and why she didn't just use mind communication to communicate the information to her mate, I will never understand. This heroine doesn't think anything through before she acts.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely cover, book somewhat repetitive..
Review: This is the story of Desari's older brother Darius (who nearly steals the show in Dark Challenge, in which his sister Desari finds her lifemate) and his human lifemate Tempest "Rusti" Trine. While I like this book and have re-read several parts of it already, I have to say that the book itself is something of a disappointment. My disappointment was not quite in the same form that my disappointment with Dark Legend (see below) came about. The problem with this book is the less-than-substantial plot. The emphasis on repetitive narrative and introspective does not tell us anything new. Far less happens in this book than in virtually every preceding book. And worst of all, Tempest changes from an interesting young human female at the beginning to a whiny teenager with authority issues in the middle. After seeing Desari and Francesca, I had high hopes for the evolution of Feehan's heroines. Tempest was a bit of a setback. Darius of course is very much in the model of the classic Feehan hero, a super-alpha - but he is significantly different from others, in that he allows Tempest her own way in something very important. The sad thing is that this book could have been so much more, given the fascinating premise. There is a remarkable potential conflict set up, which could have been so important in the series. However, it is disposed of remarkably easily in the book. Too easily, in fact. And a wonderful potential book (the story of the womanizing Barack and the ancient female Carpathian Syndil) is disposed of in a small sub-plot. With the seeming resolution of nearly all their problems, will be it be interesting when they reappear in future novels? This is a classic Feehan in many ways. Human female who converts to Carpathian. Carpathian male who is super-protective, etc etc. In other ways, it is not - it is the second book about the Lost Children, and it does set up some interesting potential conflicts with the rest of Carpathian society. Two of the males exhibit behaviors that are *not* typical of Carpathian males at large, and you actually have four Carpathian males - only one of them with a lifemate - living and working together in a society not known for its chumminess. I wish that this theme stood out more in the book. For me, it almost got lost in Feehan's somewhat rambling narrative. Rating = 3.5
Recommended = to fans of the series.
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