#BookReview – “Dark Prince” by Christine Feehan

Blurb

Carpathians are an immortal race of beings with animal instincts. Every Carpathian male is drawn to his life mate: a Carpathian or human female able to provide the light to his darkness. Without her, the beast within slowly consumes the man until turning vampire is the only option.

Raven Whitney is a psychic who has used her gift to help the police track down a serial killer. Now she is determined to escape the glare of recent publicity for the peace and quiet of the Carpathian Mountains.

Prince Mikhail Dubrinsky is the leader of his people but, as his ancient Carpathian race grows ever closer to extinction, he is close to giving in to the heavy weight of loneliness and despair.

From the moment their minds touch, Raven and Mikhail form a connection. But there are those who incorrectly view all Carpathians as vampires, and are determined to give their extinction a helping hand.

Review

In the first book of the Dark/Carpathian series, Raven Whitney is on vacation in the Carpathian Mountains to rest and heal after she helps the police in the US find a serial killer. She’s a strong psychic and can get inside the killer’s mind to hunt him down, but she’s always drained and feels dirty afterward. She abhors people touching her because she reads their mind even when she doesn’t want to.

Mikhail Dubrinsky is the leader of the Carpathian people, a non-human race who lives in darkness, drinks blood, talks to animals, shape-shifts, and feels no emotion. They only see in gray (no color-vision), have psychic abilities, and live to protect their race from threats. Each man needs to find his life mate, a woman who can soothe the monster inside him, but women of their race are rare. All the children born to those women and their life mates are males, and those children usually die in the first year. The men have two choices if they can’t find their other half: walk into the sun and die, or turn into the dreaded vampire.

Mikhail has decided to end his life, and his despair is so strong that Raven feels it. Their connection is instant. Mikhail suddenly sees everything in color and emotions swamp him. After centuries of loneliness, he doesn’t know how to deal with this, and he never imagined he could find his life mate in a psychic human. He’s controlling, domineering, and possessive, but also gentle and affectionate. Raven is more than capable of handling this bossy man, and he slowly learns how to give and take. She’s very open-minded and accepting of Mikhail’s unusual gifts, but she doesn’t know what he really is until danger comes to call.

The story is told in third person, mostly in Mikhail’s and Raven’s POV. There are lots of POV shifts into other characters, but it flowed and I wasn’t confused as to who was speaking or thinking. There are a few typos but nothing to take me out of the story. The writing style is pretty formal, especially the men’s dialogue. The life mate ritual words are very beautiful and sweet.

It’s nice to read Mikhail’s original description. He has chestnut/coffee-colored hair in this book, but has black hair in the latter books. We meet Jacques, Byron, Gregori, and Aiden—all sexy Carpathians who will later have their HEAs—and the war between the Carpathians and the vampire hunters sets the pace for future books.

This is one of my favorite books in the series. I’ve read it multiple times, but this is my first review for it. I definitely recommend it.

5 Stars