SPOILERS!!! This is the story of Dayan and Corinne Wentworth. Dayan is a lead guitarist in The Dark Troubadours. His story begins with him playing in a bar despite the danger of being hunted by a group of human fanatics. He is accompanied by Cullen Tucker who was introduced in Dark Fire. He had warned Darius and Tempest of the human fanatics and is now on top of the vampire hunter death list, along with The Dark Troubadours. Both are in a bar because Dayan had a strong compulsion to be there. Dayan is singing a song to his lifemate, imploring her to come to him and complete him. I love how Dayan is honest in his need for his woman and it is not long before a young woman walks into a bar with her sister in law. Her name is Corinne and she is a fan of The Dark Troubadours. Cullen senses she is important and sends Cullen to talk to the women. Cullen is attracted to Lisa almost instantly. I found this sweet and quite right. The last bachelors in The Dark Troubadours find their women at the same time. I liked how Christine Feehan writes in tension and a sense of trepidation into the story when Dayan realizes quickly that something is wrong with Corinne. He notices that her heart beats irregularly and that she looks quite weak. While dancing with her, he finds out that she is carrying a baby. A fact that Corinne confesses to Dayan that Lisa, her sister in law, does not know. A pregnant lifemate is a quite unique story plot in that the baby is not Dayan's. She is also fatally ill and the complication of her pregnancy does not make it easy on Dayan to convert her. For once, a Carpathian male is forced to be cautious when it comes to claiming his lifemate. Converting her can kill both his lifemate and the baby she carries. Dayan has no choice but to take his time and get to know Corinne who is a renowned song writer. Okay, here is one of my slight complaints in this book. The title is Dark Melody but Christine Feehan does not include a song written by Dayan or Corinne. It would have been nice for Christine Feehan to have done that and show the writing talents of Dayan and Corinne. The book would have been given a nice complete touch with the inclusion of a song. While getting to know her, Dayan finds out that Corinne had been married to John Wentworth, who had also been a psychic. He was murdered by the human vampire hunting society and they are now after Corinne and Lisa. Dayan is forced to kill several members of the society several times. Tension is high in this book due to all that Dayan, Corinne, Lisa and Cullen have to go through. They are being hunted and Corinne is living on borrowed time. Dayan tries to offer Corinne some relief but is forced to call in Darius and several of the best Carpathian healers to try and save Corinne and the baby. Corinne's baby girl is also a gifted psychic and may be even stronger than Corinne one day. Despite the help from Dayan, Corinne continues to get even more ill which causes Darius and the rest of the healers to race towards the couple. This book could have been a dark and heavy book if it wasn't for a bit of humor that Christine Feehan included. The small bits of humor are greatly needed and appreciated. I found it endearing that Darius was nervous to meet his big brother Gregori. He hero worshiped Gregori when he was a child and drew on his memories of Gregori as he was raising the band. The reunited group tease each other and I liked how Gregori hugged his little sister with genuine love and affection. The teasing and genuine feelings for each other made them look like a real family. The heart of the book and the most scariest was the birth and conversion scene. Even though I have read this book several times, this scene in the book still makes my heart pound with anxiety. At this point, Corinne was so weak that Dayan had to make her heart beat for her, at times even breath for her. It took the combined healing powers of Gregori, Shea and Darius to keep both the baby and Corinne alive. Dayan converts Corinne as soon as the baby is removed via c-section. She barely makes it. The baby is named Jennifer and she is half human and half Carpathian. She will be taken care of in the daylight hours by Gary Jansen, a character I have grown very fond of. I love how in the end, Corinne embraces Carpathian life and brings to Dayan back the joy of running, flying and simply living to the fullest. I also liked that like Dayan, Cullen finds his happy ending. This story was good.
Although I can't say this was one of my favorites, I did quite enjoy it. I am seriously wondering if I read the same book as some of these more negative reviewers! Maybe it has had a rewrite?! I skipped it on my journey through the series, partially because of the pregnancy factor, and I haven't been a big fan of the Dark Troubador group. The pregnancy was well explained and to me understandable, but maybe embarrassing? She basically loved the previous husband a s a friend. It made sense. As with many others there are idiosyncrasies and I perhaps would have written parts differently but it was by no means one of the weaker books of the Dark Series. Dayan was understandable, likeable, and tender when some of his counterparts would not have been and Corinne had interesting facets of herself I was not expecting (she is a musician and well known underground songwriter). Their link was much stronger than other couples who seemingly had nothing in common (Darius and Tempest come to mind.)Some other reviewers have questioned the late husband as being evil, which simply wasn't the case and was never mentioned. In fact by the end Dayan had come to terms with her previous relationship because, a. John helped her and his sister through a youth of great difficulty and kept her alive and out of harms way, b. He realized she and John seemed to have a more brother/sister friendship, at least on her side. She married him because of pressure from his sister who was her best friend and because of previous traumas she wanted to protect her friend. Although at one point she is told that because the baby is converting that Dayan's blood is changing it's "genetic code". The word DNA is not used. Near the end both are still considering the little girl John's child. So I think that the previous reviewer who said it would have Dayan's DNA and none of John's DNA was off base. There really isn't enough info although if I hadn't read that review I might have thought nothing of it. In a previous book Gregori gave a pregnant Raven blood yet it didn't change Savannah's DNA to his. But that was a different situation too... Many Carpathians are now raising adopted children and it wasn't an issue with Dayan so I'm not sure why that wasn't made more clear.This also includes various characters who visit which was nice but there were no groundbreaking revelations you have to be privy to to continue the series.
What do You think about Dark Melody (2003)?
I skipped to this book because I was so disappointed that we did not get the reunion between Gregori and his long-lost siblings in Dark Fire (book 6) that I was hoping for. She decided to wait until book 12 to do this.It wasn't quite as satisfying as I thought it would be, but I have a feeling that is because it was a different narrator and I hated the way Gregori and some of the other men were voiced. It is hard to listen to a series when they keep switching narrators. Sometimes it's a good thing, but often you end up liking the voice of a character in one book and then hating it when another narrator does it. It's almost like they aren't the same character. So, I have a feeling I'm probably deducting 1/2 star because of that. It's kind of hard to tell. Audiobooks are harder to rate in some ways, because IMHO the narrator has more to do with the enjoyment of the book than the listener even realizes. The romance was OK. The hero was likeable and so was the heroine, but neither were extremely dynamic. Dayan is not quite as alpha as many of the other heroes and the heroine was pregnant and sick the whole time, so the romance was kind of sidetracked. I think Dayan is a great hero if you're looking at things by RL standards, but I tend to enjoy reading about OTT controlling alphas that I'd have to murder IRL.It was nice to have the reunion and see Shea and some of the other characters again, but the narrator ruined it for me by botching Gregori and basically all other males aside from the H's voice. I was just gritting my teeth.
—KatieV
Featuring Dayan, member of the Dark Troubadours (with Desari, Barack and Syndil), Dark Melody began very promisingly and quickly disappointed. Dayan is a great character, tall dark and brooding to a fault, with that perfect blend of poet and bad boy - truly a classic archetype; how could Feehan screw this one up?Even Corinne, damsel in distress, is one of the better heroines - her husband has been murdered, leaving her six months pregnant; her heart is weak and the baby will kill her (even without the baby she doesn't have long to live); she's also a musician, a songwriter, and has a very level head (she only nibbled her lip once!).They had the perfect problem to create sexual tension and prevent them from getting it on until the end (her weak heart), but that's most of the problem right there: Feehan just can't create a compelling, exciting story to keep us interested until they can finally "get it on", and when they do finally "get it on", it's pretty tame and boring. And quick. *yawn*What we have in Dark Melody is over 300 pages of Dayan worrying about Corinne's heart, protecting her from the people who killed her husband, and trying to save her life. Could've worked, handled by a better writer. I kept wanting to shout at him "If you're worried about her heart, why the hell are you drinking her blood?!!!" Grrrr.One of Feehan's biggest problems as a writer is the constant use of the comma splice. What she needs is a good editor who knows and understands basic grammar, because the comma splice is really driving me nuts. Add that to the repetitiveness, to the weak character development, the plot-holes, and all the other flaws, and the best I can give this is 2 stars. A shame, a real shame, especially since it started so promisingly.
—Shannon (Giraffe Days)
I was so looking forward to loving this book especially it being Dayan's, but no such luck. So annoying, Corinne could have been such a gem, her back story & her personality should have made her the type of strong female lead that Dayan deserved. But instead we get a pig headed (ironically that's why she call him) annoying simpleton. I know i'm being harsh because she has her positive points, but when u look at the whole picture she's kind of a headache, that just won't quit.And adding insult to injury we've got another annoying female character like Lisa. Seriously?! why would u do this to someone like Cullen who has already gone through his share of misery in life, after losing his fiance not to say the least about being hounded by those society nutters. The storyline was good but the female characters just made enjoying it hard.Just need to add that it's a real bummer that Barack & Syndil didn't get a book or their own. Hope the next one is better
—Esther
