#9 Dark Gold by Christine Feehan

My Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

In this, the 3rd book in Christine Feehan's Dark (Carpathian) series, the story line seems to have become a little formulistic: girl meets tall, dark, handsome stranger, who turns out to be a Carpathian male, said alpha male saves girl's life and discovers she is his life mate, girl is inexplicably drawn to male but fights the attraction, girl is again placed in danger but comes to trust male and eventually they live happily ever after.

Besides the same story, Feehan tends to repeat certain descriptions throughout the book. I counted at least 3 times she explained about the difference between a Carpathian and a Vampire. I've almost given up on this series, but I've heard that it starts to get better around book 5, and since I have up through book 5 here, I figured I'd at least give it that long and then decide whether to proceed from there.

Since I'm not a huge fan of romance for the sake of romance, if it doesn't have some other mystery or action going on in the story, I was hoping for a bit more in this one as well. Yes, Alex was put in danger a couple of times, as was her little brother Josh, but never at any point did you wonder about whether they'd actually be able to save themselves. And it seemed a smaller part of the story than the attraction between Aidan and Alex, which makes this a romance book first and foremost.

One thing I think Feehan does do well is character development. Her character descriptions are so vivid, if a bit too flowery at times, so that you can clearly picture the characters in your head, and understand their actions and reactions. It is only because of this that I'll give this book the benefit of the doubt and give it a halfway rating, as I feel romance readers would probably appreciate it more than I.

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