Book Review – Bloodfever by Karen Marie Moning

I used to be your average, everyday girl but all that changed one night in Dublin when I saw my first Fae, and got dragged into a world of deadly immortals and ancient secrets . . . In her fight to stay alive, MacKayla must find the Sinsar Dubh - a million-year-old book of the blackest magic imaginable, which holds the key to power over the worlds of both the Fae and Man. Pursued by assassins, surrounded by mysterious figures she knows she can't trust, Mac finds herself torn between two deadly and powerful men: V'lane, the immortal Fae Prince, and Jericho Barrons, a man as irresistible as he is dangerous. For centuries the shadowy realm of the Fae has coexisted with that of humans. Now the walls between the two are coming down, and Mac is the only thing that stands between them.

I used to be your average, everyday girl but all that changed one night in Dublin when I saw my first Fae, and got dragged into a world of deadly immortals and ancient secrets. . . .

In her fight to stay alive, MacKayla must find the Sinsar Dubh—a million-year-old book of the blackest magic imaginable, which holds the key to power over the worlds of both the Fae and Man. Pursued by assassins, surrounded by mysterious figures she knows she can’t trust, Mac finds herself torn between two deadly and powerful men: V’lane, the immortal Fae Prince, and Jericho Barrons, a man as irresistible as he is dangerous.

For centuries the shadowy realm of the Fae has coexisted with that of humans. Now the walls between the two are coming down, and Mac is the only thing that stands between them.

5 stars

Available at Amazon || Goodreads

Wow!!  I was told by some of you that the second installment in the Fever Series is better than its predecessor, Darkfever, and you were so right!  Bloodfever is so much more than I expected, with action, drama, adventure, on the edge romance…this book has excited me so much, and I can’t wait to get started on the next installment, Faefever.  Karen Marie Moning has a fan for life in me!

Mac and Barrons are back along with V’lane, Maluse, and the Unseeley; along with a few new characters that are going to prove really interesting in the future installments.  Mac is still wearing her disguise and living at Barron’s Books and Baubles, but she has certainly matured and changed from the young and naive girl she was when she first arrived in Dublin.

Gone is my long blond hair, chopped short for the sake of anonymity and dyed dark.  Gone are my pretty pastel outfits, replaced by drab colors that don’t show blood.  I’ve learned to cuss, lie, and kill.

Her mission remains the same…avenge Alina’s death and find the Sinsar Dubh, all while trying to stay alive.  The author certainly had a few surprises in this installment.  Twists, more betrayals, and answers to questions from book #1 come to light.  But one question still remains — What is Barrons?!?!  I had plenty of guesses as I was led along with what I thought were clues, only to be proven wrong time and time again.  What I did learn is what Barrons is not.  He remains mysterious, sexy, brilliant, and cocky.  He’s always there to save the day….and Mac.

Whatever else Barrons may be — he was the one who’d saved me.  He’d opened my eyes and turned me into a weapon.

There were a couple of times in this book when I was on the edge of my seat….in total angst.  Mac gets herself in more trouble and her life is on the line more than once.  Eeeeep!!  I’ll admit that my heart was racing, and my blood was chilled for our feisty heroine who took on her share of Fae, vamps, and other enemies.  However, Barrons isn’t the only one to come to Mac’s rescue this time.  She has another savior in this installment.  Perhaps, Barrons has a little competition, making for an interesting turn of events.

V’lane is back in pursuit of Mac and using his death by sex power to “sex her up.”  I grew to really like V’lane in this installment.  Like Mac, I still don’t trust him, but he did the sweetest thing for Mac that really tugged at my heartstrings.  *sigh*  Of course, he also brought out a little jealous side of Barrons when it comes to Mac.

The chemistry between Mac and Barrons is stronger than ever, and they teeter just on the edge of lust/romance/love.  The author gives us just enough to tease us with these two.  V’lane is sexing Mac up and stripping her naked, while Barrons is in lust and showing he genuinely cares.

If he’d been any other man and I’d been any other girl, I’d have called the narrowing of his heavy-lidded dark eyes lust.  But he was Barrons and I was Mac, and a blossoming of lust was about as likely as orchids blooming in Antarctica.

“One day you may kiss a man you can’t breathe without, and find breath is of little consequence.”

The secrets and mystery heighten in Bloodfever, and Mac has been thrown into every situation imaginable.  No, I couldn’t imagine these situations as only Karen Marie Moning can.  For every clue that surfaces, another mystery comes forth.  When Mac finds herself in a very sticky situation and all hope is gone, I saw a side to Barrons that had me clutching my heart.  His emotions ran high as he nearly crumbled to pieces at the sight of Mac and the state of her health.  The fact that he called her “Mac” and not Ms. Lane was a testament to his feelings.  Her acknowledgement of him as Jericho also was testimony to a denial voiced only in her head time and again.

Had I, in some tiny way, come to matter to this enigmatic, hard, brilliant, obsessed man?  I realized he’d come to matter to me.  Good or evil, right or wrong, he mattered to me.

Surprises, suspense, mystery, villains, betrayal, power, destruction, and heart tugging moments abound in the second book in the series.  Karen Marie Moning has done a stellar job at building her characters even more and raising the bar for the other books to follow.  I cannot recommend this series enough.  I have completely been spellbound by these books, and they are running a very close race with my favorite paranormal series ever.

Question:  When you’re one of the few people who can do something to fix a problem, just how responsible does that make you for it?
Answer:  It’s how you choose to answer that question that defines you.

♥ ❤ ♥

My review of Darkfever

Series reading order (available books):
There are ten books scheduled at this time for the series.

♥ ❤ ♥

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