Audiobook Review: Dark Gold by Christine Feehan

Series:	Carpathians #3
Pub. Date:	Dec. 31, 2013
Publisher:	HarperAudio
Narrator:	Marc Bachman
Length:	13 hrs 4 min
Source:	Hoopla

So I am kicking off my Read All The Books! Challenge by starting on my Christine Feehan backlog. I started the Carpathians series a while ago... but I got intimated by the number of books and the mindset that I would never get caught up! And now that I waited so long between reads, I am kinda thinking I should have started over at the beginning. I can't remember anything from the first two books. Hmmm... dilemma. Should I go back and re-read the first two?

Our millenia-old Carpathian in this book is Aidan Savage... and he lived up to his name. He was wonderfully deliciously savage because his beast was so very close to the surface. Aidan was very close to that edge, the point where the Carpathian falls over into the dark side and becomes a murderous gluttonous vampire. The only saving grace for Carpathians is to find their fated female, the one that helps them feel emotion and see colors again. Aidan was a great hero, I totally loved him and have not one negative thing to same about his character, personality or behavior. I thought he treated the heroine extremely well, even when she was being overly difficult. He was sweet and caring to the heroine's little brother, and he genuinely cared about the employees working in his household. He was super patient with Alexandria, placating her way beyond what I would have been willing to do. Plus with his striking (and dangerous) golden looks just made him the perfect package for a fangastic hero.

When we first meet Alexandria Houton, she is a human artist or graphic designer going on a job interview... and leaving her little brother to be watched by a homeless guy in the parking lot. It's not as bad as it sounds (I hope) because it seemed like they knew the guy and this was not an uncommon occurrence. Aidan saves Alexandria and Joshua from a rogue vampire who desired to make her into evil life mate... and it was from about that point on that I started hating Alexandria. She was never really grateful to Aidan for saving her life, for providing her and Joshua a home, or for anything else he did. She lived in a ridiculous state of denial... wanting to hang on to her humanity no matter the consequences (even when they were deadly). But what really got my goat was her decision to go out with the greasy gamemaker dude just to spite Aidan. She wasn't attracted to the guy and already knew that his attention made her skin crawl... so why is she trying to force it.  That just ticked me off. After all of that, it was going to be nearly impossible for Alexandria to redeem herself in my eyes. While I was glad things settled down (or heated up so to speak) between her and Aidan... it was a little to late for me to become a fan of the heroine.

Needless to say this was a combative relationship. Things don't settle between our couple until pretty late in the story.  While I don't mind these slow burn situations, I prefer them to be a little less hostile. I was cheering for Aidan to claim his female and banish the dark beast that wanted to take over, so I was glad he got his HEA in the end. The side plot involving rogue vampires provided a good distraction from some of Alexandria's behavior, and I enjoyed getting a glimpse into Gregor, who is even closer to the edge than Aidan. I have a feeling that Gregor is going to have another difficult female on his hands... so I am crossing my fingers that she comes to her senses earlier than Alexandria did.

I was so happy to find that most of this series is available in audio on Hoopla. It seems that is really the only way I can get in my "personal" reading these days because I have poor impulse control when filling up my blog reading schedule.  I wasn't crazy about the narrator for this installment... he was kind of Dracula-esque if you know what I mean.  I was waiting for him to come out with an "I vant to suck yur blud." His portrayal of Alexandria didn't do her any favors... I found the voice that he gave her to be too high-pitched and grating. This is often how I feel with male narrators for some reason... I just can't buy into their female affectations.  But when he wasn't channeling Dracula, I did like his interpretation of Aidan and Joshua.

I'll be back with my next Carpathian read in a couple weeks.  Stay tuned!