They were masters of the darkness, searching through eternity for a mistress of the light....

Would she find magic - or madness - in his dark embrace?

Young Savannah Dubrinski was a mistress of illusion, a world-famous magician capable of mesmerizing millions. But there was one - Gregori, the Dark One - who held her in terrifying thrall. Whose cold silver yes and heated sensuality sent shivers of danger, of desire, down her slender spine.

With a dark magic all his own, Gregori - the implacable hunter, the legendary healer, the most powerful of Carpathian males - whispered in Savannah's mind that he was her destiny. That she had been born to save his immortal soul. And now here in New Orleans, the hour had finally come to claim her. To make her completely his. In a ritual as old as time... and as inescapable as eternity.

___________________________________
I WILL BE RUNNING BOOKRINGS FOR ALL THE BOOKS IN THIS SERIES. THE ONE'S WITH LINKS HAVE RINGS CURRENTLY OPEN...

Dark Prince: Book 1 *I'm on my way to CandyDarling*
Dark Desire: Book 2 *I'm on my way to CandyDarling*
Dark Gold: Book 3 *I'm with nikel27*
Dark Magic: Book 4 *I'm with Kislany*
Dark Challenge: Book 5 *I'm with Kislany*
Dark Fire: Book 6
After Twilight Anthology (Dark Dream: Book 7)
Dark Legend: Book 8
Dark Guardian: Book 9
Dark Symphony: Book 10
The Scarlatti Curse: connected to but not part of series. (connected to character from Dark Symphony)
The Only One Anthology (Dark Descent: Book 11)
Dark Melody: Book 12
Dark Destiny: Book 13
Hot Blooded Anthology (Dark Hunger: Book 14)

THIS IS NOW A BOOKRING!

*Kislany (Cyprus)
*Nikel27 (Germany)
*Tanya04 (UK)
*CandyDarling (Finland) *BOOK IS HERE*
*Auglaise (UK)
*Xtal (BC Canada)
*NeedSun (Ontario, Canada)
*Innae (Colorado, USA)
*CheriePie (Massachusettes, USA)
*Kyrissaean (New Hampshire, USA)
*2dognight (Canada)

Released on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 at about 10:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at by mail in To the next participant, A Bookring Controlled Releases.

RELEASE NOTES:

released to the first person on the bookring: Kislany

Just received it today together with Dark Challenge.
Just flipping through it, I KNEW that this will deal with Gregory, it was so nicely hinted in the prev. novel :) Can't wait to get started with it. Most probably will send it off after I've finished it and then start the next book.

Just a quick update, I am almost finished with the book and will start the next one after that. Had a little bit of personal life coming between my reading (just finished college and had to work on my final disertation), but now I'm back on track. Towards end of this week I will be sending it along to Nikel27.

Finished it this morning, woke up at 6 am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got through the last pages of the book. It was great, loved it as much as the previous ones. I will send the book to nikel27 on Monday and will start the next one, which is also in my possession.

RELEASE NOTES:

arrived safe at my house, more later

update:
I am getting more and more in this Series, thanks for sharing this book with me.
As I had 3 books in the row at home, it was a great weekend read.

Ready to go on the road again...

RELEASE NOTES:

EnJoy this Book !!!

Received today, thank you!

This is the book I'm most looking forward to out of all the ones received today. I fell for Gregori in the previous book and am eagerly looking forward to reading the trials Christine Feehan puts him through.

I so wanted to read this book after reading Dark Desire. I love tortured heros, and who could be more tortured than Gregori? I found the book riverting and had to finish it in one setting. It might have been nice to have gone to the Carpathian Mountains to see everyone else but I can also see why the author wanted to separate the two main characters from those previously done so as not to swamp the story. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Thanks!

RELEASE NOTES:

Sending to CandyDarling

Received this with 3 other paranormal romance books! Thank you! I'm really looking forward to reading about Gregori!

After reading the first 100 pages of this book, I was ready to throw it out the window (figuratively speaking of course!) and never wanted to see another book by Christine Feehan again. I was really looking forward to reading Gregori's story, as he was an interesting minor character in the three previous books in the series. I was really disappointed when I started reading this book, but fortunately it got better toward the end.

I can't understand why anyone would want to read about how a man forces a woman to bend to his will. I was extremely frustrated and angry at Gregori. I got no pleasure out of reading about Savannah's struggles against Gregori, and the hopelessness of her efforts. Sometimes good books make you angry, but good novels rarely piss you off to no end. When I read for pleasure, I expect to enjoy myself, and not be filled with frustrated rage.

The plot really begins in chapter 7, and it takes off in chapter 10, when Gregori and Savannah go to New Orleans. From chapter 10 to the end I liked the book. At this time Savannah and Gregori had settled most of their differences, and I enjoyed reading about their interaction. The only thing that bothered me was that the transition between the two extremes seemed too easy; if the situation was as bad as it was in the beginning, it shouldn't have just suddenly been as good as it was in the middle and the end...

Auglaise said in the review of Dark Desire: "Reading these books makes me a little sad as I can *tell* that Feehan knows everything possible there is to know about her world - and she's not really telling the rest of us. With this book, I felt like I was watching 15 minutes of a film that I'd really wanted to see that I was hoping would be very good, and then the projector breaks and I don't get to see the rest of it." I used to agree 100% with this, but I'm starting to doubt if Christine Feehan even has developed her world that much. I'm beginning to suspect this is all there is. Of course, there are some surprising twists yet to come in the relationships between people, but I can't get rid of this nagging doubt that there isn't much more to the Carpathians and their world than what we've already seen...

What really bothers me in Christine Feehan, is the crappy writing. Not only are the characters in every book the same, only with different names, but the writing is really repetitive. I have the feeling that I can read five times in each book how the Carpathian males can't survive without their lifemate etc. This gets really annoying, when you notice you don't have to read anymore, because you already know what the next passage will say. Also, I never want to read again how someone's eyes are like "molten lava" or how "she watched the way his body moved, the rippling of his muscles beneath the thin silk shirt..." Finally I started laughing every time the author used the verb "ripple" when talking about muscles, seriously it happened all the time.

After I had finished this book, I went to the author's official website, christinefeehan.com, and checked if there would be more information about the Carpathians, something to make me want to read further. There was some interesting information, and I managed to spoil myself about the next book, but it was a good spoiler, because now I want to read the book... Unfortunately there wasn't any info on the Carpathians, except some history. Somewhere Feehan also said that the romance is the most important part of her stories, so I guess we can expect more rabbiting in the future, and not that many new revelations about the Carpathians and their culture.

(I started reading 6/11, and finished the book 7/11.)

I mailed the book to Auglaise today together with Night Pleasures and Night Embrace. I recommend Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series to everyone who likes paranormal romance. :)

Not only did I think that I'd journaled this, I also thought that I'd sent it on...I seem to be losing my mind at the advanced age of 24! I am so sorry that I've had this for as long as I have, and will be sending it on the second I get an address; hopefully by Friday. Thank you so much for letting me read it, I really enjoyed getting a better glance at the enigmatic Gregori!

Being sent off today!

Just got this in the mail - I'm so looking forward to this story.

This one was mailed out last Thursday and I'm hoping it should arrive soon with the next person :-)

Sometimes it amazes me how fast the mail can be. This book arrived on Friday, June 23.....amazing. I have a few to read before it.

This was my least favorite so far. I couldn't see this couple together.

Sent by air on July 23.

Received in the mail yesterday. I look forward to reading it. I am finishing up another book, but will start this one ASAP.

(there was also a bookmark with this book, and it has a seperate BCID...
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1457600 )

Arrived today -- thanks, innae!

Hmmm...looks like this one is getting some seriously mixed reviews. It'll be interesting to see what I think!

I was really in the mood for a paranormal romance!

But having said that, I really wish Feehan would stop having her adoring male leads almost kill their long-awaited lifemates when they have sex. It's happened in all four books so far, and more than once in each book! What is with that? You would think that the women would plead a headache more often after needing to be revived from a near-coma the first few times. It's very uncomfortable to read about over and over. I can't say I was at all impressed with the way Gregori pretty much raped Savannah at the beginning of the book, either.

I agree with a lot of what CandyDarling wrote, especially about the story changing after the setting changes to New Orleans - it's like a completely different book! (And on a side note, I kept thinking about how I was reading about New Orleans on the one year anniversary of hurricane Katrina a few days ago. Lots of love to all the hurricane victims, past and present!) Luckily the second half was much better than the first half!

Overall, I'm glad to see an improvement in Feehan's writing as the series moves along. I think reading two of these within a month was a bit much though, and I'm ready to read something that feels more like it was written more recently.

Update: I've just heard back from 2dognight, and she'd like to be skipped. Once again we're out of people on the list and I don't know what to do with the book! I'll try taniazed one last time and then maybe ask for opinions in the rings/rays forum....