Dark Curse: A Carpathian Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: blurring speed, ice floor, Dark Curse, Christine Feehan, Christine Fechan (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Born into evil and ice, Dragonseeker Lara Calladine longs to find the source of her nightmares. The only man who can help her is Nicolas De La Cruz who, for centuries, has longed to feel the sensual love of a woman without a hunger for blood. He's found the perfect mate in Lara. But their mysterious pasts share a secret that could destroy them both.

About the Author

Christine Feehan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many paranormal romances and novellas. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Jove; Reprint edition (September 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0515146994
• ISBN-13: 978-0515146998
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,742 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Feelings On This Offering From Feehan, September 4, 2008

By	30 Book A Month Reader (Ohio) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Dark Curse (The Carpathians (Dark) Series, Book 16) (Hardcover)

For those of you who are fans of Feehan's Dark Series, you are already familiar with Lara, who escaped on the back of a dragon from the evil mage's cave. Flash forward and Lara is an adult who has spent a lifetime searching for the same cave in order to give her two aunts a decent burial. Reaching the village of the Carpathians, Lara is found by Nicolas De La Cruz, her lifemate. Nicholas is so close to turning vampire that he actually begins to feed on Lara before her voice brings him into the light. Lara and Nicholas begin to work out their differences and also begin helping to solve the low birth rate of the Carpathian women. Why mixed feelings?

Positive - A truly excellent hero. Even when Nicholas is doing things the reader doesn't approve of, Feehan still manages to create sympathy and empathy for her tortured hero. By the end of the book, Nicholas is a terrific lifemate and one you won't soon forget.

The mystery surrounding the Carpathian women's low birth rate is becoming clearer and clearer and the answers are intriguing and complex.

As Lara is a Dragonseeker mage, she uses various "rhyming" spells to work her magic. Some of them in the book are very descriptive, touching and very well done.

Negatives - Lara is a heroine that is too hard to like or to figure out. She is by turns insecure, confident, weak, strong, indulgent, selfless - the reader has a hard time figuring out her true nature. I realize that Feehan was trying to show that Lara was damaged emotionally as a child and is growing as the book goes along. However, the mixtures of emotions don't seem to ring true. At one point in the book, Lara tries to commit suicide. This was such a departure from the heroine's character that I was like, WTH? This is the same woman who escaped from a mage, became an adult, practiced her magic and went all over the world trying to find one ice cave. Someone that determined decides to throw it all in? I don't think so.

Feehan once again used the new Carpathian language which she introduced in Dark Demon. Her hero uses it constantly and the reader is forced to skim it, looking for the next English word to understand what he really said. It jars the reader from the story and makes it very frustrating to get a flow going - especially when you realize that it isn't really a true foreign language, but rather an imaginary one.

Feehan spent 32 pages at the end of the book on this so-called language to give translations to various words and phrases. I felt cheated and ripped off. Those 32 pages could have been used to write more to the story. At the end, I briefly considered taking the book back to the bookstore and asking for a return on my money.

So definitely mixed feelings about this book. I would recommend it to other fans of the Dark Series, but just be aware that along with a really good story are some serious flaws.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another great series bites the dust, October 9, 2008

By	J. D. Witt (Tulsa, OK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dark Curse (The Carpathians (Dark) Series, Book 16) (Hardcover)

Like everyone who loves Feehan I thoroughly enjoyed the early books. The characters stand out vividly in my mind and I could recognize each one of them by a brief description. In the last few books the characters all run together and Lara and Nicholas are the worst. She's a whiny cry baby and he's just bland period. And I am so sick of the whole mage line of the story. But the foreign language part is the worst. I have always loved the words the men used to bind their mate. Now the whole rhythm and beauty of their chant is broken because she is obsessed with this new language. It pulls you out of the story and adds nothing but losing your place as you skip it to find English words again.

I thought it would be so interesting to find out why they were losing children but instead it was just boring. So many parts of the book were boring. I read steadily through the first third of the book and then just started skimming and skipping pages. I never do that!

I know people complained that the early books were too much alike so she had to add some new elements but I find the early books much more interesting. When I need a Feehan and Carpathian fix I'll just stick with the first eight or ten books. I still love re-reading those books. The books after Destiny I'll never open again. Once was more than enough for such forgettable and boring reads. But Oh, Gregori, Julian, Darius, Jacques, Lucian, and Gabriel? Now those were the days.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars disapointed....., September 4, 2008

By	Dark Dreamer "Dark Dreamer" (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Curse (The Carpathians (Dark) Series, Book 16) (Hardcover)

I've been an avid fan of the Dark series since I read the first one (Dark Prince). That being said I was disapointed in Dark Curse and I reccomend waiting for paperback! For the cost of a hardcover book I expect a whole book, and Dark Curse left too many issues up in the air to even list, I feel as though I didn't read the ending. This story certainly needed another 100 pages or more to tie things up. I did enjoy what we did get in the story, which is good since I did not like Dark Possession at all. I do look forward to the next in the Dark series, but I do not think I'm going to buy them when they come out, I will borrow, then buy the paperback to complete my collection.