Reviewed for THC Reviews"2.5 stars" In all honesty, I had been looking forward to trying Christine Feehan's books for quite some time, so the fact that Dark Prince did not resonate with me, is incredibly disappointing. I freely admit that perhaps my expectations were too high. The positive ratings for Ms. Feehan's books seem to far outweigh the negative, and I've seen many paranormal romance fans rave about her stories and hold them up as being among the best and brightest that the genre has to offer. Unfortunately, even though I truly thought I would enjoy this book, Ms. Feehan's writing style simply did not work for me. Most authors use page breaks to indicate scene or point-of-view changes, but Ms. Feehan tends to run everything together. There are significant jumps between activities where they might be doing one thing in one paragraph and something else in the next, or you might be reading one characters point-of-view and in the next paragraph it suddenly changes to a different character. The dialog is incredibly flowery and lacked a natural flow. The manner in which the characters speak to one another is nothing like the way anyone I know would ever converse. It never came alive for me, and I have to say that these discourses were some of the dullest I've ever read in any book, not just romance. The prose is also far too verbose with a flood of words present, but not much actually being said. In my opinion, the book probably could have been pared down by at least a third and most likely told a much stronger story. In addition, the entire novel has an extremely passive voice which did not lend itself well to me as a reader being able to relate to the characters. I recently read a writer's tip which said that in order for an author to avoid the dreaded “telling not showing,” he/she should minimize the use of “be” verbs. Apparently Ms. Feehan nor her editor were aware of this rule, because I would estimate her use of “be” verbs to be about twice that of actions verbs with a particular affinity for the word “was.” The result was a book in which there was minimal action and worse yet, very little plot, and that which existed never really pulled me into the story. In fact, it completely failed to engage my imagination or intellect in any meaningful way, leaving me pretty bored throughout nearly the entire novel.Before beginning my reading of Dark Prince, I had found the things I'd heard about the Carpathian world to be rather intriguing and thought that it would be a fun and stimulating mythology to delve into. The concepts certainly had a great deal of promise, but unfortunately, I found the execution to be lacking. For all of the author's excess wordiness there was still an appalling lack of details on virtually everything, characters, setting and plot. In my opinion, the whole Carpathian mythos was relatively ill-defined, mainly consisting of vague, fuzzy notions instead of good, solid world-building. The actual age of the Carpathians is not revealed (they are simply said to be centuries old), and I never fully understood how everything worked as far as the differences between Carpathians and vampires except that apparently vampires are Carpathians gone bad. Also, except for one theory that was very briefly stated by Gregori, there is no real explanation as to why Raven is able to be turned Carpathian when they had never been successful in turning any other human woman in all the long centuries of the past. I additionally felt that a bit too many supernatural abilities were afforded to one single species, with the Carpathians being vampire-like creatures who are also shape-shifters, psychics and can control both the elements and animals. I thought that this only added to the muddled nature of the Carpathian legends rather than helping to define them as a race. The Old World European setting should have been rich in both history and beauty, but the environmental descriptions were another thing that lacked detail. This part of the narrative was minimal at best, making it very difficult for me to imagine the settings.I can't say that I ever really warmed up to Mikhail and Raven as the hero and heroine either. Mikhail is probably one of the most (if not the most) arrogant and quite frankly, frightening heroes I think I've ever read. Initially, Mikhail virtually acts like a stalker. If I had a guy saying and doing things to me like the things he was saying and doing to Raven, I'd probably be scared to death and running the opposite direction, rather than trusting him implicitly and doing everything he said, especially after barely meeting. I might have been able to forgive Mikhail's pretentiousness if he showed a little more vulnerability, but in my opinion, he never did. I realize that he is supposed to be a centuries old vampire who seems to have rather archaic beliefs, and ultimately his heart seemed to be in the right place, but he was simply way too dominant and chauvinistic for my taste. Just because he was born and raised in another century doesn't mean he can't change with the times and come into the 21st century like other age-old supernatural beings I've read stories about. As to Raven, I was initially rather fascinated by her and how she used her psychic gift to track serial killers, as well as how that work had all but killed her both emotionally and spiritually. I thought that this was the most interesting thing about her, yet sadly, this part of her characterization was never fully explored. At first, Raven seemed like a strong woman who wouldn't let Mikhail walk all over her, but in the end, she almost always gave in to his will anyway. She spent a lot of time protesting both the things Mikhail told her to do and the things that were happening to her, but acquiesced to everything pretty easily, which I found to be contradictory. Ultimately, the elements of both Mikhail and Raven's back-stories and the depictions of their feelings surrounding these things (such as Mikhail not being able to see in color and being ready to kill himself or Raven's mental torment after being inside the heads of serial killers) weren't given enough depth for me to feel connected to either one. I thought both of them should have been terribly tortured individuals, but they never came off as being particularly tortured at all to me.Probably due in large part to my inability to connect with Mikhail and Raven as separate characters, I also was not able to care much about them as a couple either. I realize that they had a telepathic link to one another, but that alone did not make me feel any sort of love or even desire building between them. It was only the author who told me that these things supposedly existed. I felt that they made love and declared their love for one another far too quickly. Having read several paranormal romances in which supernatural creatures typically have an unquenchable fiery sexual attraction for their mates, I'm used to that, but again, it was more like it was being told to me rather than me actually being drawn into the story and feeling it. Also the rather animalistic ferocity in Mikhail's love-making, especially the first time when Raven was still a virgin was not quite my cup of tea and something I didn't find particularly romantic. It was also quite disappointing that for the longest time, Raven didn't even fully know or understand who and what Mikhail actually was. In my mind, this made Mikhail's saying of the ritual words to bind them together a non-consensual act for Raven which made me rather uncomfortable. Typically, I like it when the hero uses endearments with the heroine, but I didn't really care for Mikhail calling Raven "little one." It reminded me too much of the way one would speak to a child, which further played into the whole idea of him being more powerful and trying to bend her to his will, and also left a bad taste in my mouth. The only good things I can say about their relationship is that Mikhail eventually lightened up and for the most part treated Raven with more gentleness and care later on, and it was nice that she had found someone who could understand and share her gift without bringing her the physical and emotional pain that touching another person usually did. Although it is almost unheard of for the hero and the heroine of the same book to be TSTL, I thought that Mikhail and Raven both were on more than one occasion. Mikhail had spent a lot of time warning Raven about the dangers of the assassins who were staying at the same inn where she was lodging and had said he wouldn't allow her to return alone, but then he did anyway with no explanation. I could see trouble brewing as a result of that folly from a mile away. Then less than a week after that trauma, Mikhail left Raven alone again (why he didn't have some of his men guard her, I'll never know) and she, once again, wandered off, leading to more bad things happening. In my opinion, their brainless mistakes served as nothing more than weak plot devices to create danger and force confrontations with the bad guys.As for the secondary characters, I found most of them to be pretty one-dimensional. There are several other Carpathians, mostly males, who are introduced, but for the most part very little information is given about any of them or their individual situations. Mikhail's brother, Jacques, becomes the hero of book #2, Dark Desire, and Aidan, another male who doesn't come into play until very late in the story becomes the hero of book #3, Dark Gold. Gregori is Mikhail's right hand man, and the only secondary Carpathian character who really caught my attention in any way. He has extraordinary healing abilities and powers that seem to equal or exceed Mikhail's. He becomes the hero of book #4, Dark Magic. There are also a lot of villains in this book, but with the exception of the vampire, Andre, I didn't find any of them particularly compelling, nor did I understand any of their motivations. The murderous intent of the vampire hunters just seemed to be rooted in some kind of radical fanaticism, and I still don't really know what Andre's vendetta was against Mikhail. Not to mention, the alliance between the vampire and vampire hunters seemed to completely fly in the face of reason. All in all, the villains just seemed to keep popping up out of nowhere, have no real reasons for the things they did, and only served to constantly injure and cause trouble for the protagonists. If there had been some kind of mystery surrounding the identity of the assassins or their motives, I think it would have been a much better story. In addition, I couldn't help wondering what was up with the young human males' penchant for rape. Every time Raven was in their vicinity, they seemed to start fantasizing about forcing her.Try as I might, there were only a few things about Dark Prince that I can actually say I enjoyed, but none were developed in a way that truly brought these elements alive for me. Aside from the couple of things I've already mentioned, I was intrigued by the idea that the Carpathians were apparently created by God like other creatures, and that Mikhail regularly counseled with a priest. I also liked Mikhail's huge library of books which I thought would have been fun to explore. I'll admit that the story did hold some kind of strange, enthralling attraction for me, but overall, I found it to be entirely too dreary, foreboding, morose, and utterly humorless. Even the action and love scenes fizzled for me. Christine Feehan's writing style in general reminds me of Judith Ivory's (the only author so far to receive a one-star rating from me), with the only difference being that it was marginally less frustrating. The only reason Dark Prince got a 2.5 star rating from me is because I was somehow able to power through and read it, beginning to end, without having to set it aside temporarily in favor of some other book. Dark Prince was Ms. Feehan's first published novel, and in my opinion, her greenness as a writer definitely shows. It was also my first read by her, and the first in the Carpathian series, but I can't say that it has engendered any particular interest for me in continuing with either the series or any of the author's other books.
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.Mikhail Dubrinsky is the leader of the Carpathians, a powerful race that is dying out due to lack of females. Raven Whitney, a human, is vacationing in the Carpathian Mountains after using her telepathic skills to help catch a serial killer. Raven senses Mikhail’s distress and the two of them realize they have a connection to each other. Raven may be the life mate that Mikhail thought he’d never find and she represents hope for the Carpathians.Ugh. I really hated Dark Prince and, though I tried to stick it out, I finally had to put it down after three chapters of torture. The first problem is the characters. Raven is everything you expect in a romance heroine: slender, small bones, tiny waist, big high breasts (how often does that combination happen naturally?), big blue eyes (“brilliant sapphires”), long thick lashes, skin like satin, full soft mouth, “a wealth of raven hair tumbling down her back to draw attention to her rounded bottom” (Ugh!). Raven’s physical features are described over and over and over. The phrase “her slender…” (fill in with “arm,” “body,” “form,” “wrist,” etc) was used 25 times (assuming that Amazon has the entire print version searchable, I’m not sure). Every man wants Raven, yet she’s completely unaware of it. And totally innocent. We’re told that Raven is also intelligent, but I saw no evidence of that.Mikhail is everything you expect from the brooding blood-sucking type: tall, rich, important, dark, broad-shouldered, chiseled features, arrogant yet passionate and, for some unknown reason, completely infatuated with Raven. Not only does Mikhail look great, but he sounds great, too. “Black velvet seduction was in the molten huskiness of his voice.” (Ugh!). By the way, the word “velvet,” which applies both to Mikhail’s voice and Raven’s creamy skin, is used 32 times in a 447 page book which calculates to, on average, one “velvet” for every 14 pages. With that much velvet, I could reupholster my living room.This kind of stuff offends my ears (I was listening to this in audio format), but this isn’t the worst of it. What I really hated was that these two meet telepathically and speak about 3 paragraphs to each other while Mikhail spies on her when she’s alone in her bed in a white lace push-up nightie (how many antisocial young virgins normally wear those to bed, I wonder). Suddenly he becomes outrageously jealous at the random unwarranted thought of Raven with another man: “Rage shook him, raw and deadly.” (Ugh!)Then he claims ownership and control of Raven and starts bossing her around, calling her “my woman” and “Little One” (this title is used 132 times in a 447 page book — you do the math). Despite Raven’s protests (“Don’t try to intimidate me, Mikhail; it won’t work. No one tells me what to do or where I can go.”) He manages to get her exactly where he wants her to be and she seems to be rather ineffectual against his manipulation. Though we’re told she’s intelligent, she seems naively unalarmed when Mikhail says these sorts of things (which make up most of his black velvet seductive speech): * Do not disobey me in this, Raven. * You will drink. Obey me in this. * Obey me at once. * Why do you defy me? * Do not try to leave me, little one. * Stay! * Do not try to leave me, Raven. I hold what is mine and make no mistake, you are mine. * You need to sleep. * You are not nearly as afraid of me as you should be. * You will never repeat this foolhardy act again. * I will not tolerate any foolishness that might put your life in jeopardy…. I will not lose you.[he’s got his hands around her throat here] * American women are very difficult.These examples are all in the first 60 pages of the novel when they’ve known each other for one day. This is Mikhail’s courting behavior. Raven’s “foolhardy act” was to take a walk in the woods around the resort while on her vacation. Apparently American women are very difficult because they like to choose their own activities while on their own vacations rather than obeying handsome violent strangers. After this conversation, he carries her off to his lair. And she’s not kicking and screaming. Does Raven think that Mikhail will become less demanding, controlling and possessive after the courting is over?Well, I couldn’t stand it, so I gave up. I don’t like Mikhail and Raven and I don’t want to read any more about their twisted relationship. How any self-respecting woman can think this is sexy… I have no idea.
What do You think about Dark Prince (2005)?
Man, did I struggle to get through this one!The dialogue is beyond cheesy and awkward and very repetitive. I never got attached to the heroine or the hero. It was like suddenly here are these two people, with no background and an anorexic description and then they are in love. The author provided more details and depth about the secondary characters and I found myself caring more for them as I felt I knew them more.After hearing such wonderful things about this series I can say I am VERY disappointed. I have the second book, though I am not sure I care enough to continue.
—Cherise
Once upon a time there was a young woman with a dream. A dream that women the world over could live in freedom as equals. That they would have the right that many women have been denied for hundreds of years, possibly more - to live healthy, happy lives with partners who love and respect them and provide for their needs.Then that young woman read Dark Prince - and her dreams were shattered.Actually, this is all a lie because that young woman, the woman writing this review (yes! It is I!) didn't actually finish this twisted garble of a mess.Now I know, I KNOW that I'm not always easy going on books. I have a standard (though considering the fact that I have read all ten of the BDB books may convince people otherwise but that aside...) I know I like the writing to be of a certain standard and for there to be characters of a certain quality and a plotline and world that has a certain depth and or immersive quality.From what I read, this is less a novel and a How To Guide. How To Travel To A Distant Country And Ensure Your Body is Never Found After You Get Abducted, Abused and Killed.First and simple step:1. Do everything Raven Whitney does in the first chapter of her book. No, I'm not kidding. That really is her name. Aptly so as she has long, silky raven hair (yes it's referred to as such in this book) which begs the question of what her parents were going to do if she'd been born with red hair. Or if, she had been born with black hair, it had all fallen out three weeks later (as it did with me) and grown back blonde.2. Romanticize and imagine men like Prince Mikhail Dubrinsky are sexy and possibly good life mates.They're not."But surely, Kat," you say, "you can't have too much to say about a book when you only read twenty-two pages into it."You'd better believe I do! The book begins with Mikhail, lonely and contemplating ending his own life. The following excerpt was actually published by the way. I'm not making this shit up for giggles. If I were it would probably be better:"Grief overwhelmed him, consumed him. He lifted his head and roared out his pain like the wounded animal he was. He could no longer bear to be alone."[image error]
—Kat Kennedy
Christine Feehan was bold and daring when she created the Dark series. Published in 1999, Dark Prince won several awards, including Best New Author for Paranormal Romance and Best Shape-shifter. Christine Feehan brought to life a world of never-ending twists and dramatic and breath-holding moments that will leave you pushing all of those wonderful chores aside until you have finished the book!The Dark series is centered around an immortal species, the Carpathians. Shapeshifting, magic throbbing, heartbreaking characters that will undoubtedly push adrenaline through your veins and never leave you wanting. The Carpathians are a dying race. The men, filled with darkness and loneliness, forever enduring the lack of colors, the lack of emotion that ceases after a few hundred years of existence. Without the light to their darkness, the lifemate that is the other half of their souls, they walk the earth alone. The only thing that holds them to this world is honor. Honor above all demands them to continue, to not seek the rush of the kill, the one small moment that would allow them to feel. To force them into eternal damnation, a vampire.The Dark Prince is an incredible book that is filled with exceptionally brilliant characters. Characters that rip through your body and hold you on edge.Mikhail Dubrinsky, Prince of Carpathians, has server his people for centuries. Never failing in his duties, he continues his search for answers to the most crucial problem of all. The survival of their species. Their women are few. Those who can carry their unborn child to full term, are left mourning. Many of the children are male and even those die within the first year. The last female child to survive was five hundred years ago. Without their women, without lifemates to the men that endure several lifetimes of hopeless searching, more of the Carpathian men turn to darkness. Becoming vampires, the very thing that honorable Carpathians hunted.One the brink of surrendering himself to the sun, to destroy himself, he mourns the failures. He was unable to help his people. He could no longer bear to remain alone. Thoughts rumbled through his mind, thoughts of anguish, of hunger, of defeat. As if an angel was sent to him, Raven Whitney, a powerful psychic that uses her talents to hun serial killers, linked with him, touched his mind. She whispered words of encouragement, words that brough emotions rumbling through his body. He found her at last. His lifemate. Colors returned, and dark lust boiled over his body as emotions slammed him like a punch to the gut.Bring a strong-minded woman, Raven stood her ground against the sexiest man she had ever seen. Forcing the extremely dominant male to endure her stubbornness, her unending struggle to remain who she is, to keep her own identity. Battling with uneasy feelings, doubts that she was being possessed by a dangerous man, she forced herself to trust him. To let him touch her as no other man had done before.This book and the relationships within it are unimaginably sexual. The intense physical attraction between Mikhail and Raven are body shattering. The sexual pull between them will leave you panting and I would hope, leave your significant other with a better chance of getting lucky! ha!Dark Prince is filled with battles within the Carpathian infrastructure. Several incredibly dangerous outside forces stalked them, hunted them for the evil creatures they were perceived as. Fanatics, a group of killers would not stop until the leader of the vampires was destroyed. The Carpathians combined their strengths, fighting against the mystery behind the attacks. All along, Mikhail struggled to continue his hold on Raven. Concerned that he would lose her, to be alone again.The progression, the growth of the characters is astounding! This book is an excellent read! I advise anyone who loves paranormal romance books, shapeshifters or vampires to read this series. I do not recommend this book to young readers. You will most definitely not be disappointed!
—Tilly Slaton
