Dark Carousel by Christine Feehan

Hey everybody, first the blurb:

Blurb:  The moment Charlotte Vintage walks into his club, Tariq Asenguard’s blood is set on fire. The ancient Carpathian had given up hope of finding his lifemate, but now he will do anything to make Charlotte his own. What Tariq doesn’t know is that Charlotte is using herself and her best friend as bait—to try to draw out the bloodthirsty killers who have already murdered Charlotte’s brother and mentor.
 
Charlotte is familiar with Tariq. Not only is he one of the richest and most eligible bachelors in the city, but he’s also a renowned collector of old carousel horses, which Charlotte restores. Their shared passion opens Charlotte up to trusting him with her life and with the desire she can no longer control. But it also makes her vulnerable to a centuries-old curse that will unite her and Tariq in a war against the enemies of humans and Carpathians alike.

My thoughts: I have been reading the Dark Series for a long time now and I will admit to having been disappointed in recent books. I felt the writing was very repetitive and overused. I felt the sex scenes were concentrated on too much and the characters were lacking in development. My biggest complaint was that the last books did not (in my opinion, only) add anything to the overall story arc.

However, with Dark Carousel, I believe Ms. Feehan may be back on track. Tariq and Charlotte are great characters, although I felt their romance happened a bit too quickly. Insta-lust is fine, but insta-love just doesn’t work for me–it needs time. However, what appealed to me in this book was we really received a story and a good story at that. Vadim Malinov is as evil as Xavier ever thought of being, his torture of the innocents was traumatic and you felt their trauma in the story, yet you also felt the hope that other characters had that the victims would heal from it. Developments in this story can proceed through several books to come, I think. As I was well on my way to saying a sad farewell to this series, I have to stick around for a while yet after this book.

Happy reading,

Debra