Dark Prince: Author's Cut Special Edition

This is a reissue of book 1/35 in Feehan’s “The ‘Dark’ Carpathian” saga. As stated in the book description, this is a special edition, the author’s cut that has been expanded by 100 never-before-seen pages. I read this series many years ago [over twenty books at the time] and was curious to see what had been added.This review may contain ***spoilers*** Rating: MA: mature audience… not to be ignored. This is paranormal fantasy, hardcore sex, erotica, aggressive male dominance, extreme violence, death, murder, fanaticism on multiple levels, violence against women, abuse: trigger warnings due to violent attacks, infanticide, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. Do not ignore this warning. However, IF… if you can handle it, the writing is simply beautiful. Even after all these years, I am still enthralled by the way Feehan sets up and describes her universe while expressing the emotions and feelings of her characters.Blurb: “The breathtaking story of a beautiful hunter with extraordinary telepathic abilities captivated by the powerful allure of a tormented prince of the mysterious Carpathians.” Of special note before reading this series, keep in mind it was first written back in the day when men were cavemen and dragged their women off to their caves and had their way with them. OK, maybe it’s not quite like that but very close. I’m not sure the 21st-century feminist will appreciate the arrogant and commanding attitude of our hero. It’s like where that caveman meets a modern woman with an attitude.Raven Whitney has psychic abilities and worked hand-in-hand with the Police in tracking and bringing to justice serial killers. Her gift gave her the ability to see into their minds and track them. After each case, Raven would go off alone so she could rest, clear her mind of what she saw of the crime, and recharge her strength. Her last case had been extremely complicated, and Raven was nearing exhaustion when she chose the Carpathian Mountains in Romania [yeah, those mountains] to rest and recuperate. If you aren’t sure what they are or what that means… think Dracula’s crib. Now you get the picture.Mikhail Dubrinsky was an ancient and as the prince of his race, he was obeyed without hesitation. His orders were never questioned and he expected and received the allegiance of his people. To do otherwise meant death. His first, Gregori, and his second, Jacques, were his righthand and protectors. Hidden deep within the Romanian mountains, away from prying eyes, they had existed for centuries. They lived, worked, created wealth, protected their territory, and the local citizens. They looked just like everyone else, only they were not human, nor were they completely vampiric.There are several areas of concern for the Carpathian race that would be the threads to follow throughout the saga: First, we have the low birthrate of female babies and the fact their babies are not strong enough to live beyond the first year. This could be a trigger warning for those who have experienced disappointments. It is especially emotional as the Carpathian women grieve their loss. Something was killing their babies and reducing female birth rates. This was a science/medical mystery/puzzle that was amazing to follow throughout the saga.“… and the darkness in us is only balanced by the light in our women.” Quote from the bookSecond, the ratio of Carpathian women available for marriage was reaching a critical point. Finding women to marry was another problem that would be of concern in each of the subsequent books. Without a life-mate, a Carpathian male is only half a soul and that half is darkness. After many centuries, his abilities start to diminish such as seeing color, having empathy, or feelings. As this condition worsens, he approaches a point of no return where he is completely overcome by the darkness and turns [rogue] vampire. Since a Carpathian’s job is to kill vampires, his only honorable option would be to end his existence. There were several terms used to describe this process: walking into the sun, seek the dawn, seek eternal rest, seek the solace of the dawn. If he turns rogue, his fellow Carpathians are obligated to hunt him and destroy him. No quarter can be given.However, when a Carpathian male hears the voice of his life-mate, those abilities return in a rush of color and feelings. That is the first sign that a Carpathian has found his life-mate. There is a mating ritual/bonding [equivalent to human marriage] that accompanies the joining of life-mates that is interesting and in a macabre way, rather beautiful.“… the animal drive to claim, a Carpathian male’s ruthless, implacable resolve to possess his mate.” Quote from the bookOur characters meet through a psychic connection. It’s rather like an online dating site except this happens in their heads. Raven, hearing Mikhail’s anguish cry to the universe in his loneliness, speaks to him through their psychic connection. He is first intrigued that someone had the ability to hear him and then he suddenly discovers that he can see color. Raven is his life-mate and that is all it took. He had to find her. She had to be his. She would be his. Nothing would prevent her from being his. Yeah… well, let’s just say that our Raven had a few thoughts on that assumption.“You are so reckless, Raven, so heedless of danger.” Quote from bookI will say, this was the most stubborn, independent woman I’ve ever met. Even after all these years, she still got on my last nerve with her stubbornness that nearly got her and others killed. NO woman should go off alone when there are psycho-fanatical serial killers about. Her saying I’ll be OK… I know what I am doing… didn’t mean squat when she was… well, that would be a spoiler. Grrr!“… her body had gone through the rigorous change, ridding itself of all human toxins.”Raven’s body had made the adjustment from human to Carpathian. This was unheard of as no human woman had ever survived the transformation in the past. Perhaps, she was the answer to their problem. They just had to discover what was different about Raven. Her body’s acceptance was one thing; however, her mind had not caught up with the transformation. This took forever. She was constantly getting herself into trouble and I hate stories where the heroine is TSTL [too-stupid-to-live]. Then the author took an abrupt change that nearly knocked me out of the story when we switched/jumped from one villain to a new one. The dramatic change was sudden and jarring.It’s funny, after reading it again… how similar Twilight is to many parts of this story. It’s like Twilight was written for the YA reading group while ‘The Dark’ saga was written for their parents. I really liked the secondary characters… even above the Raven and Mikhail characters. These guys were amazing and most of them will receive their life-mate in the next several books while others will have to wait a bit longer for their HEA. It was fun revisiting them and I was surprised that I still remembered their stories. This is hard to rate. I loved the storytelling and descriptions; however, it was tough reading. I will only recommend this to those who can handle it. It is not for wimps.

This book was ok. 3.5 stars. I liked the concept of this book but it was difficult for me to get through it. The first time I read this was back in 2018 and I gave it 3 stars. I recently rediscovered this author and started reading her newer books and have enjoyed them a lot. I have finished and liked a few series and I’m ready to start the dark series. This was a little bit better the second time around.I had a tough time connecting with Raven and Mikhail. I liked him but she annoyed me at times. She comes across as whiny sometimes and I understand the author is trying to make her show this species what compassion for humans is but sometimes it frustrates me when it can be detrimental to him & his people.Granted, this was her very first book back in 1999. I’m sure the series got way better so I am going to continue on to the 2nd book and see how it is. I like to read all the books within a series and in order but if it’s similar to this book, I may skip a few books and read some of her later ones in this series.

3.5-4 stars“Is this possession, or is it love?”So, this was my first foray into the world of the Carpathians and that quote above is pretty much the exact question I asked myself for much of this book. I’ll explain more of that in a moment. Overall I thought the book was decent and it has made me curious to see what some of the other books has in store, after all there’s like 27 books in this series so it obviously has something that give it sticking power. This particular book was a bit slow going for me, maybe because it was the special author’s cut that had 100 extra pages, it felt unnecessarily long and drawn out in parts and I wonder how much of that is attributed to the extra content. The writing itself is also incredibly dense, very wordy and long descriptions of everything, it sometimes made it hard to follow. It’s virtually impossible to read this quickly because you’ll really find yourself confused, often times I would find myself re-reading parts just to make sure I was following correctly. I hear that in future books this gets better, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. It wasn’t unbearable, you just really have to focus when you’re reading it!I liked the concept of the Carpathians, although I am still a little unclear on what exactly they are. We learned a lot about all of their powers (they pretty much can do anything) and about their lifestyle but we didn’t really learn where they came from or much of their history. I would have really liked to know more about that and maybe in future books this is explained more, I just would have thought it would have been covered in the book that introduced you to this race. One thing I found sort of funny, or ironic I guess, was the fact that as powerful as these people were it didn’t take much to take them out. Put them in sun for a second or give them one bullet wound and they’re down for the count, it doesn’t matter how strong or powered up they were the night before, they end up as weak as a kitten. Maybe this was just the author’s way of trying to balance their seemingly unending powers by giving them such a weakness but I found it amusing that they could go from one extreme to the next so easily. It’s a wonder they’ve all survived as long as they have!“Someone had to show you what love is, Mikhail. Not possession or ownership, but real unconditional love.”One important aspect of the Carpathian lifestyle is the concept of a life mate. Apparently there is one match for every male Carpathian out there, one woman who is the other half to their being, the light to their darkness. Without their life mate they are relegated to a life void of color and emotions relying only on their self-control to avoid giving themselves over to the darkness forever (i.e. becoming a true vampire) or ending their lives. The fact that their female population is dwindling and no new female Carpathians have been born in recent history has really turned the Carpathians into an endangered species. Enter Raven Whitney, a human female with telepathic abilities. When the books starts she senses Mikhail’s (prince of the Carpathian race) thoughts of despair and desire to end his life. Ever the compassionate one, Raven reaches out to him mentally and hopes to help ease his troubles. Turns out that once he makes the connection with her, his emotions and ability to see color return and he knows that she’s his life mate. This is where I struggled a little, I guess a lot like Raven I had a hard time reconciling her irrational need for him with her logical thoughts of “this is crazy, how could I possibly feel this way after just a day”. It could all be explained away through the life mate concept but even though Raven couldn’t help what was happening to her, not being from that race she had a hard time accepting what was actually happening. There were times where I couldn’t believe how stupid she was being, like how she was ready to fling herself off a balcony because she couldn’t make a mental connection with Mikhail ad then other times where I applauded her resistance and rational thought and how she tried to challenge Mikhail.I had a bit of a hard time with Mikhail’s brand of love, much like the question posed at the start of my review, it was very hard to distinguish between love and possession. I totally get that he is from a different species with antiquated customs and views on relationships, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept. He was alpha male to the extreme and if you look at Mikhail’s actions on the basest of levels a lot of what he does comes across as creepy and wrong. But there were moments of playfulness or where I saw glimpses of actual love show through which gave me hope that maybe with the introduction of human women into their world that some of these antiquated views on women will start to change the more and more they are challenged. Time will tell but it looks like this might be the dawn of a new era for the Carpathians!Overall I thought this was a decent book and it does make me want to read more if only to understand what the draw to this series has been over the past 16 years. There was a decent amount of action and danger in the second half of the book and that helped to move things along for me. I also liked some of the secondary characters and the bond between these men. I look forward to seeing what’s going to happen next in the second book.“Tell me what I’ve done, Mikhail.”His eyes were fathomless, watchful. “You have given your life into my care. Rest assured, little one, you are safe in my hands.”

The storyline itself is really good and I continued to read because I enjoyed this a lot however the romance between the two main characters could have been written a lot better.*Spoiler*I think that if Mikhail wouldn’t have told Raven about the whole lifemate thing and it was more of a slow burn and a little less obsessive, possessive, toxic love then I would have enjoyed that side of it a lot more and would definitely buy the next in the series because I cared about the characters. Once you get over that though and I just pretend in my head that the time line is months rather than what seems like a week then I enjoyed it much more.

I remember I got this for free last year or so. I still had it as unread in my library. It's a slow start about finding a life mate to push darkness away.There are creatures there are more than vampire.It's seems an interesting story, but I had problems to get connected with the characters.Mikhail and Raven two characters find each other. Emotional, I felt jumbled. Description wise not much, I hope for more information and description about history and the surroundings in this area, but nothing it would have lifted the storyline a bit.The storyline development is very slow, and I struggled to believe that a woman can follow so fast a total stranger. Raven seemed to be a strong character, but she lose her free will. Mikhail is demanding, arrogant and knows no bounds.I would have loved more involvement with the people in the village it was not enough. The action is written well, but that's all. I liked Griorgi good character. Overall the story lacks on something, I don't think I will getting the second one for this price, to high.

Awesome. She is a psychic who having helped the police track numerous killer's is now burnt out and needs a place to recuperate. He is a dark, handsome hunk who unbeknownst to her is from another race. A race very similiar to a vampire in that they need blood but not in the sense that they kill indiscriminately. Although if they do not meet their soul mate, with time they do turn into one. He is close to turning but meeting her saves him. However his race has been hunted by hunters and when a hunter appears it is her who pays the price. What will happen to both of them? Will their love be enough for them? Brilliant story, fabulous characters (although I must admit that the cover is not how I pictured him). I had bought the hardcopy of this year's ago and have re-read it numerous times, so much so that I need another copy.

A much younger me read all these books & enjoyed them. I do like the story & always enjoy series of books.Now I'm a fair bit older, I found the writing rather "flowery" & over discriptive. I also skip past all the sex scenes because it's a variation on a continuing theme.Very popular books & loads of them, so this is just my older opinion. As I said, I did enjoy them the first time round.

I was introduced to this author and series many years ago when I was in Boarders book store looking for a good vampire romance book and stumbled upon Dark Symphony, I fell in love and when I discovered that it was part of a series I immediately went hunting for the books before it.I found it really hard to complete Dark Prince and honestly it’s not my favourite in the series BUT I do absolutely adore Mikhail and Raven in future books