Maria read and liked Kisholi's review of Dark Prince (Carpathians, #1):

"Thanks to a quarter-life crisis that has left me bereft of the simple pleasure of enjoying a good book, I've been relegated to flipping through comics and smut romances in an effort to distract myself from the general tragedy that is my life. While m...more Thanks to a quarter-life crisis that has left me bereft of the simple pleasure of enjoying a good book, I've been relegated to flipping through comics and smut romances in an effort to distract myself from the general tragedy that is my life. While most of them have been reasonably bad, I have not felt compelled to write a review about any of them.

That said, Dark Prince being the first in the Carpathian Series was so very laughable that I find myself rising from the gloom if only to warn others who might be expecting this here book to produce some entertaining vampire high-jinks.

The premise is interesting enough. The Carpathians are almost-vampire inasmuch they can shape-shift, heal quickly, drink blood (need to), read your mind etc. But they don't run around raping and killing, mind their own business generally and only mingle/mate with their own kind. The baddies are trying to kill them all, mistakenly believing them to be dangerous when they're not. Really. Besides when these Carpathians find a lifemate, they are faithful to the end and when one dies, so does the other. Cute huh?

The problem lies in the actual telling of the story - our intelligent, strong willed, all American, blue jeans sporting heroine pitted against an arrogant, traditional, "we protect our women" type ape... I mean vampire... should have been an explosive combination. While there was some debate/banter between them it was never developed to a believable depth. The dialogue felt like yet another attempt to show us that these two polar opposites crackle - when they didn't. The tension, if strung out well, could have had readers begging them to do it already. But sadly, the couple have sex by the second chapter and it's horribly predictable from there on.

And seriously, if the heroine was as intelligent as she was supposed to have been she would have noticed all the typical signs of vampirism but no... "I dreamt you made me suck blood from a great big hole in your chest - it must be because I'm in Romania", "it's so cute how the wolves seem to listen you" and "oh did you just leap across the room like a psycho jungle cat? wow"

Seriously.

Of course this book had a lot of sex which is perfectly alright as long as its written reasonably well but this wasn't. A lot repetition - multiple, headache inducing mentions of her "tiny waist" and "silky hair" and his "velvet seduction". And My God. If I had to listen to him call her "my little one" one more time I would barf.

I read the whole thing and it had a few good bits admittedly, but they were so few and far between that I can only give this an overall 2 stars. (less) "

Maria added a quote:
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." — Oscar Wilde

Maria added a quote:
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live." — Oscar Wilde