Customer Reviews

Dark Slayer (Dark Series)

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Deviating a bit from the normal formula of her other 'Dark' Carpathian books, Feehan's Dark Slayer was a unique entry into the popular long running series and ended up being one of my favorites of Feehan's more recent offerings. Though fans who live for Feehan's uber alpha males may be disappointed, I really liked long time series villain Razvan as he takes his turn in the spotlight. That Feehan decided to give us an atypical leading man is just as well because leading lady, vampire slayer Ivory Malinov, was an atypical leading lady as well and wouldn't have fit as well with some of the more dominating and arrogant of the Carpathians. And another part of what made Feehan's latest offering so good was that that she gave us a starring pair who have both had enough pain and suffering in their interesting backstories, and in their experiences with family members turning to the darkside, to add greater depth to both of the characters and their relationship.

Other things I really liked: Lots of cameos of old starring pairs are worked in thoughout the story and there were some really cool aspects to Ivory's wolf pack and her magical connection to the wolves. I also liked that Feehan waited longer to consumate the physical part of Razvan and Ivory's pairing, allowing Razvan and Ivory to work through some issues instead of forcing it - and, after a gazillion other books in this series, I had been starting to feel I feel as if I had read all of the love scenes many times before, so having less of them here than normal worked better for me and in them Feehan used a lighter touch with Razvan which made them feel fresher too.

My nits: Yet another chauvinistic stubborn effort to `protect' a `helpless' woman by Gregori. I found his attempt to force Ivory's acceptance of the Carpathians' aid frustrating - though once Gregori came to understand Ivory's power, he did give her the respect she deserves. I realise that some readers enjoy them, but there were way too many spell-poems for me (I mostly skipped over these and the Carpathian dialog too, I am just too impatient and these slowed the story down for me - I just 'had' to find out what happened next). It also bothered me a bit that Ivory seemed somewhat diminished when she discovered her feminity - she started out as a really strong independant character, a true survivor and more than competent at slaying ancient vampires and unraveling the evil mega-villain Xavier's spells - and I didn't like that she ended up doubting herself with Razvan. But even with that nit, she was still a great heroine.

So is anyone besides me wondering how long is Feehan going to be able keep this series going? There still several stories I've been waiting for, in this book even more potential leading men hunters are introduced, and I really don't see the overall story arc building up to a big finish quite yet. But hey, I'm not the only one still willing to shell out the big bucks and preorder the hardbacks, so who knows - maybe if we're lucky this series will be as immortal as Feehan's Carpathians themselves.

Typically, as a popular series advances the intrinsic center "charm" seems to fragment as the author tries valiantly to keep up his or her excitement in the story. (Uh, BDB ring a bell?)

In "Dark Slayer"...Christine Feehan comes back to what entranced us in the beginning....a species simply trying to survive. Granted these males are gorgeous, sexy and come built-in with speeches that bind a womans' soul to theirs. They are gut-wrenchingly honorable..fighting vampires who were once the same as they were: Carpathian warriors.

In "Dark Slayer", Ms. Feehan brings us back to this essential problem but twists it as the villian of several novels, Razvan the mage/Dragonseeker is shown to be a victim of an "immortal" wizard. Zavier, the ageless evil has to have Carpathian blood, preferably a family member, to continue his his seemingly endless persecution of Carpathians. Zavier wants them all to die in a revenge-ridden quest for absolute power.

Zavier captures and victimizes his grandson, Razvan, for hundreds of years, starving him and taking over his body to impregnate psychic women for the babies that carry a Carpathian blood supply.

Zavier used Razvan's body in an earlier novel (Dark Demon) to attempt murder on Razvans' sister Natalya.

After the latest destruction of one of Zaviers' evil labratories, Razvan escapes into a blizzard half-naked, and starved for blood. Half mad with guilt and unable to process the searing evil of his life, Razan wants to die. So he wanders off into the woods collapsing in the snow....and waits for the morning sun.

Instead, another legend of the Carpathians: Ivory the presumed-dead sister of the evil Brother Malinov stumbles across Razvans' body after a lengthy battle with vampires.

Hundreds of years earlier, Ivory was attacked and cut into pieces when she was betrayed to vampires by Zavier. Happily for Ivory, the vampires neglected to remove her heart...so the pieces of her body lay in a field while wolves chewed into her legs and arms. Ivory manages to put herself back together with the help of Mother Earth and, after lying in the earth for three hundred years Ivory begins her dreadful life's mission to eradicate the evil Zavier by unraveling his spells and fighting vampires. She becomes another legend, the Dark Slayer.

Seeing Razvan's crumpled body causes her great pain because she never dreamed of family or children. She was always alone except for the wolves she saved from death by sharing her blood and converting them to Carpathians. Yet, she recognizes Razvan's importance to her...because he is the other half of her soul.

The love story is touching and well-linked to the story line. Familiar Carpathians and vampires return in this book. Skyler and Dimitri are still fighting their attraction now that Skyler is seventeen. The Dragonseeker "Aunts" are still healing in their earthen beds. Savannah gives birth to her twins. Mikail and Raven are pregnant again. All of the characters are consistent with prior novels but show real personal growth.

I won't give away anymore....because this book deserves a thorough read.

I rate this one up there with the first book, "Dark Prince".

This book is recommended as a "Keeper".

I am still reading the book and about halfway there. It's OK but not my favorite. I'm losing patience with Ms. Feehan's tendancy to delve so extensively into the carpathian language. I find that more of a distraction than anything else. I enjoyed her books more when she didn't do that. She seems to delve deeper and deeper with each book she writes in the dark series. Why does she feel this is so important to the story line...it isn't to me. In this book over 30 pages are used at the end for the Carpathian language index. That was a total waste, I'm not bothering to read that. I feel at some point she just may write an entire dark series book in the carpathian language and expect her readers to learn the language to decifer the book. This book has less romance and more violence and gore with a lot of pages wasted with reading lines first in carpathian language and then in English. Are these just page fillers? I think she should have edited this out. Who cares? Just stick with the story and stop trying to introduce a new language to the readers. I'm not interested in learning carpathian language, I just want to enjoy a good story written by her without having to learn the language to do it. I was a bit disappointed in this book but I'm still a big fan and I like her a lot. I'll be glad when dimitri and skyler get together, I've been waiting on that storyline for a long time.

I see I am pretty much in the minority here, but I can't give this more than two stars. There is so much touchy feely lovey dovey stuff in this book that it goes nowhere until the last few pages and still falls flat for me. Neither Razvan or Ivory are really strong characters. They are so enamored with each other that all they do is compliment praise and ogle one another. While there is nothing wrong with a loving couple and a story that shows what faith, courage and tenacity can do even when you've been tortured, there can be too much of this type of indulgence. Pages and pages are filled with this couple's lovemaking. Everyone, including the usual cast of carpathians, is so mellow I almost fell asleep. There was no challenge, nothing really scary and they took out the villian in one fell swoop, although they left enough pieces of him that I expect to see Xavier again. Wouldn't want to waste a good villian. Come on Ms Feehan let's get back to the program and forget all the language and useless text in the back. Surely I will never recite any of the verses or use the carpathian language, so why do I have to read all this? Bring back the excitement that made this series sizzle.

I don't mind change, I love it in fact, but when it comes to the series I follow I'd like the writer to stay on track.

I know this book got a alot of Die Hards fans in a huff over the bad reviews from some, like myself...but this was a bad read plain and simple, I don't care how much you like Feehan; eventually you have to come to terms with the fact that this book sucked!

The chants and spells were a total bore. I skipped thru them. Some reviewers compaired this to poetry, okay fine, but if I want poetry I'll pick up Poe or Longfellow. I think it was clear that these songs and chants were filler for the hard back.

The battle scenes went on and on for chapters and then all the healing the two main charaters had to do was just too much. I feel like I need to heal after trying to get thru the book.

Oh, and this Carpathian language crap, who cares? I'm not a Trecky or a Lord of the Rings groupie so I don't need made up languages. Another filler for the hard back.

I never felt for the charaters, and there was no sexual tension what so ever. By the time Feehan got around to the sex 300 pages in I didn't even care if they hooked up or not. Which is a shame considering that this book is a Vampire Romance???

I wish Feehan would just get back to how she was writing the books before, I don't need all the charms, spells, and chants. I also don't need to read about the past charaters over and over again.

If you have not read this series, do not start here, go back to the beginning and work your way up to this one, but if you skip then no worries, you didn't miss a thing.

Oh and why was this a hard back and man I wish I didn't pay 20 bucks for it!

I rarely write reviews, but when I checked this title and saw so many people gave it 4 and 5 stars I had to chime in. I can't imagine what they were reading. This book was painful to get through. Really painful.

Other folks have complained about the spells and the language. That's a minor flaw as far as I'm concerned. The real problem here is the complete lack of art in writing. There is no storytelling. No progression or development of the characters. The main characters bump into each other and in the span of 200 words have come to the conclusion that they are willing to "die for this person". Ok...really? But then 200 words later the come to the conclusion that they will "die for this person"....again. I thought I accidentally reread a chapter or soemthing. But that's not all.

The action scenes are boarderline comedy in the lack of set up. A character will be wandering along doing something mundane and boom. Cataclysmic event out of nowhere. No build up. No forshadowing. I've seen madlibs with more plot development than this novel. Terrible.

This novel not only repeats previous "Dark" series bits, but it repeats itself. The tedium of this uninspiring romance is certainly not relieved by the pages and pages of boring chants (in Carpathian and English if you please) and spells. The concept may have been interesting. The pages of this stuff felt like cheap fillers.

I do not require the fictitious Carpathian language to make the characters come alive. I do require a coherent character development, dialogs that are not horribly trite and situations that are compatible with the established premises. I got none of that. Good thing I got those 40 pages of explanations on who these people are, their language and history, right? Well - no. That did not add anything to the book. What is its purpose? The utter pretentiousness is grating. Are we all to go to conventions speaking Carpathian much like Star Trek fans learn Klingon??

This book is not exactly a huge disappointment inasmuch as the previous few books in the series left me with little hope of finding anything fresh or interesting. The purple prose is worse than ever in this particular offering. The only thing new with this book is that I was unable to finish it. It was too boring and life's too short for bad books.

My appreciation for this series has been lagging for some time so I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this latest installment as much as I did. Ivory Malinov has become one of my favorite female characters. She is the Dark Slayer with a tragic past of betrayal and suffering. But she has risen above all her trials and makes a life for herself that is interesting and fulfilling after centuries alone. She is the first character to have accidently turned an animal with her ancient Carpathian blood. In fact, she turns an entire pack of wolves who now travel with her as tattoos on her ravaged body, not only protecting her but helping her slay the vampires who prey upon humans and Carpathians. Not only can they become tattoos she can also wear them as a full length swirling fur coat. How is this possible? Who knows, just suspend disbelief and enjoy the cool ideas for what they are: pure entertainment! Ivory has also developed a fascinating set of tools with a unique coating that prevents the vampire from shape-shifting so she has a better chance to triumph in battle. She is truly a heroine who inspires admiration. Needless to say, when her mate comes along he is blown away by her as well he should be.

Razvan has long been thought a traitor to the Carpathian people. Of course we have been given hints along the way that perhaps he is not as evil as he seems. Ivory finds him collapsed in the snow preparing to face the dawn in order to end a tortured existence. While Ivory has no use whatsoever for a mate she is unable to allow him to die and takes him back to her home to heal him. It is no surprise that these two will knit their souls back together but the path they travel is not the predictable and well worn pathway. There is a lot of vampire battles, especially heartrending because Ivory must face one of her beloved brothers, now the enemy.

While I did enjoy this story very much I also had some strong negatives that took a couple of stars off the review. First, I thought the battle scenes went on and on until tiresome. Second, and worse, the time they took to heal from these battles just went on and on as well. What happened to the quick Carpathian healing from previous books? Even the worst injuries were healed after a few days underground. So now, suddenly it takes weeks plus an army of healers? Those passages just limped on forever and became very tedious. And I found it extremely hard to believe that Ivory spent several CENTURIES underground after being torn apart. I understand her injuries were beyond severe but no one could endure centuries underground without breaking. That just isn't credible to me, a person would go insane in all that time. And finally, Savannah acted like a total idiot during the birth. It's a good thing Gregori didn't listen to her or her babies would be dead. Her attitude was completely out of character for Savannah, much less any mother, to want to give up so quickly on her babies just because they were a little uncomfortable. If I had been there I would have slapped her silly. In fairness, the Savannah I know and love would never have acted like such an hysterical ninny. These elements really detracted from my enjoyment of the story. And last but definitely not least: Ms. Feehan is still enamored of the Carpathian language and spells so they take up a lot of space in the book. I guess some of her fans must be enjoying this stuff but frankly the whole subject bores me to tears so I just skip over it. But it does interrupt the flow of the story, especially the bonding chant the male speaks to his female. I always thought that passage was so beautiful but now it is all broken up with the Carpathian words and it destroys the rhythm and elegance of the recital.

I've always suspected that the author is using this stuff as filler to flesh these stories out and make them worthy of hardcover prices. I'm not convinced that the new elements make them any more interesting than the early paperback offerings. I still miss the simple love stories we had in the first half of this series. But I am glad I didn't miss this one with Ivory and Razvan and their family of wolves. And back on the bright side, we also see many of our old favorites as they work to defeat an ancient evil and find a solution for the death of their children. I wish I could give it 3 3/4 stars.

I have been disappointed by Christine Feehans last 3 Carpathian books! This book was boring and I felt like there were to many unanswered questions about the Carpathians I have grew to love. What of Darius and Tempest..she found she was pregnant in the reunion book! Gabrielle was turned..how is she? How is the child of Shea and Jacques? Why was Colby not there to meet Ravzan? There r so many more questions. I also wish Feehan would stop with the Carpathian language translations and chants...we know already! I feel she is trying to rush these books. Now there are 5 more ancients? Could we please follow up on all the other characters that have made this series what it is before we introduce more people! I also feel like Raven has been pregant for yrs! The best part of this book, honestly was the end. The Dark one was more human and cried for his children and mate...Gregori became more likable. Other than that...this book did not move me at all!

No sizzle.
The bad guy was destroyed, but not really.
Half the book is made-up language translation and the other half is spells.
It put me to sleep... twice.

I understand that not every Feehan novel has to be spot on, but the last few books in the Dark series seems to be breeding silly spells and stupid, made up languages. It's distracting and unpleasant to plow through. Perhaps the exciting parts were missing from my copy. However, I fear Ms. Feehan has lost the story under the very, heavy weight of a make believe language and the weighty import of rhyming spells-- poorly.