Book Description
Experience a connection that defies death in this captivating novel in Christine Feehan’s #1 New York Times bestselling Carpathian series.
Safia Meziane has trained since birth to protect her tribe, the family she holds so dear. All along she told herself the legends she was raised with were simply that. But now, she must call upon all of her skills to fight what lies ahead. Evil has come to their small town on the cost of Algeria, evil that Safia can feel but cannot see.
She is terrified she will not be able to protect the ones she loves. As her family’s “chosen one,” she has always believed she would face this task alone—until her family reveals she has been promised to a warrior who will join her. An outsider. A Carpathian. . . .
Petru Cioban is one of the oldest Carpathians in existence, and he has spent all that time without the soothing presence of his lifemate. For two thousand years he has waited for this woman to be reborn, only to find her in the sights of a monster he has fought before, a vampire risen again to finish a battle started centuries ago.
Now, Petru must face his greatest enemy and his greatest shame. He has no hope that Safia will forgive his betrayal once the memories of her past life return to her. But he will not make the same mistake again, even if he has to sacrifice everything for the woman who has claimed his immortal soul.
My Review
This book started out incredibly slow with all the backstory about Safia's people and how her grandfather is the head of her tribe and has trained her to speak the Carpathian language for when she meets her lifemate. But he never told her that until recently and now she is not happy that the person she's supposed to marry is not someone from her tribe. Her grandfather also didn't tell her that this male she's been promised to is an immortal who drinks blood to live or that she will have to become like him in order to become his lifemate. Safia has been trained since she was very young to be the defender of her people against vampires and demons but she has yet to actually battle any. But her grandfather knows the time she will have to is fast approaching.
Safia is a warrior and when she has to face down vampires, demons and insects being controlled by evil who is out to kill her, she does so easily. She is also a tarot card reader and the cards tell her the future. When she finally meets Petru and the five Carpathian males that have accompanied him to help rid her village of the master vampires and demons that were sent there to kill her, she's not sure what to think of the male who is to be her lifemate.
This is not one of my favorites from this series because it's getting away from how this series started out with lots of Carpathians interacting with each other, nor did it bringing back characters from previous books. We don't see a lot of characters from previous books and that's a real shame, a missed opportunity right there. But I did like Petru, he was of course the typical Carpathian male who is bossy and likes to take charge but he saw Safia for the warrior she was and gave her the respect she deserved. So he at least had that going for him.
Towards the middle of the book it did pick back up and I found myself again very engaged in the story.
Dark Memory is book 37 in the Dark series by Christine Feehan, but I think it would be read as a standalone because we don't get a lot of backstory about the other characters from previous books.
I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
Disclosure: I was given an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own.