Review: Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning

Alright, now usually I've been going the Indie route with my reviews. Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time at my computer to read through an entire e-book. School, friends, and a whopping new relationship do that to a person (of which I am extremely happy about, despite the fact I have missed the blogosphere). Between classes, however, I have plenty of time to catch up on my reading of paper books (at least until I buckle down and save up for an e-reader, probably sometime this summer). While reading through my paper books, I came across what is now my new second favorite series ever, and first favorite series in the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance genre.

The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning starts with Darkfever and ends with Shadowfever, with three books in between. The premise is spelled out nicely in Darkfever:

Darkfever (as taken from Karen Marie Moning's website):

MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman.

Or so she thinks... until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae...

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless V'lane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands...

The tagline for the Fever Series "Feel the heat, catch the fever." accurately describes my reaction to these books. Sure, it sounds very sexual and tense (it's a dark thriller dealing with Celtic Faeries, how can it not be?), but underneath that tagline are truly sympathetic characters, twisting plots, and edge of your seat writing. Reading this, I felt the heat of these factors and caught the fever of reading these books. I'm hooked.

The protagonist is one of the best female leads I've seen to date in genre fiction. I don't know if its my own Floridian heritage that makes me sympathize with her love for the sun or how she enjoys the slow life of the American South (not that my part of Florida really counts, but the attitude pervades everything), but this pretty-in-pink woman grabbed me from the start. She's blonde with a good body, but she comes alive on the page. She's not your Barbie stereotype, she's Mac, just Mac. Watching her go from Mac 1.0 to Mac 4.0 by the end of the series only served to latch me in further. An ordinary woman faced with these life altering choices and tragedies really makes you think and feel for this character.

The male leads: Jericho Barrons and V'lane, are not one-dimensional, sex-crazed hunks. The mysterious, tatoo-clad guardian figure is cold, sure, he's mysterious, sure, but he has some rare moments of genuine emotion that are as subtle as all his other actions. You watch parts of him peel away like a Shrek-onion (only better looking) to show how deep of a character he really is. And V'lane, the romantic, sex-crazed, heart throb faerie prince (yeah second most masculine thing in this book) shows little by little how human his true intentions are, despite the fact he's anything but human.

And the mythology! This woman's take on the folklore of the Scottish and Irish Celts is nothing short of unique. Her interpretation stays true to the character of the source material while taking on a radical life of its own. Celtic Mythology is what I want to write around, and throughout these books, I felt new inspiration to delve into my own work and make it this good.

This series will keep you guessing and invested the whole way through. You'll find yourself believing "Holy crap, the world really is in danger, Ireland really is where it's all going down, and MacKayla Lane really is our only hope."