I have loved the Carpathian novels, The Dark Series by Christine Feehan for a while now, and I hadn’t read any in a moment and when I saw Dark Promises on my library shelf, I got myself caught up with the series in order to read this. I was only one novella and one novel behind and I quickly read those. I completed Dark Promises in one day, this is a bit unusual as I don’t normally have a day to commit to nothing much more than reading and laying around, so this was a treat. Read on to see how I thoroughly enjoyed it!
In having read the series up to this book, I went into it prepared for the normal story arc as presented in the realm of the unique circumstances of the main characters in this book, but was totally rocked off my chair (out of my bed) of normal Carpathian storyline in Chapter 1, page 24 (hardcover edition)! This installment in the world of the Carpathians is NOT the same and already I am so shocked by what is happening I had to put the book down and process my feelings about it.
Now, to be honest, these books are not for anyone triggered or with a general dislike of themes where the woman is dominated both mentally and physically by the man. I don’t find the domination to be overtly sexual in the way of BDSM (as recently popularized in fiction writing), but in the Carpathian world, the males have strong personalities and often come from a time centuries earlier when the main objective was keep your woman safe and cherish her at home. Often a woman is brought into the Carpathian world (they are not human) without her full knowledge of it and this heavy handedness, as some may call it, is usually tempered by seeing that the woman has a feeling this is the right man and the right thing to do, but doesn’t mindfully know it is. She wants this new reality but will probably have a very difficult time admitting it. In this installment, this theme is very prevalent. In some past installments, the woman is less dominated, often has a dominating personality herself which then has to be understood by a male working on a centuries old dynamic of his word being law. That is not the case in Dark Promises. If you can get past that, keep reading.
In Dark Promises, someone at odds with herself all her life has been forced into a new life. Now she is being ripped from her perfect fantasy life and trying to claw her way out of it into reality. This reality also has the benefit of showing her what strengths she has always had. The essential theme in Carpathian novels is the immutable bond between life mates, and one of the things I love most about Ms. Feehan’s world is that the players involved always find out that the bond isn’t the real glue in the relationship, it is the trust and care built, even in a short time, that makes you root for the couple. It makes you scream in frustration and weep in joy as they stumble through learning trust and care in a strange, exciting, often terrifying new world. Also, the couples often feel the lifemate bond has it wrong due to the vast gulf of differences and opposite personalities, but often this bond cements the idea that a loved one’s opposite demeanor helps expand our perceptions and makes us stronger. This story actually covers two couples and moves the story of The Dark Series along well. The two couples’ lives are intertwined and while one couple’s story is prominent and the other secondary, both are told well and fit in the realm of one book. This installment in the storyline depends heavily on the book immediately previous, Dark Ghost, but if this is the first Carpathian novel you have picked up, it won’t be hard to follow. But, I will warn you, if you read it and love it, you will likely want to go back and start at the beginning to see all the great lives changed in the world of the Carpathians.
Dark Promises gave me a jolt out of my preconceived notion of how things and people worked with the Carpathians, and that was great. Especially since I didn’t know my notions needed a jolt. Yet, this didn’t feel forced or contrived, it was plausible in the world Ms. Feehan has built. While it moved the overall storyline and ended with my own searing need for the next book in the series, it was still a lovely, self-contained story of people being grown outside of the box they have forced themselves into by an otherworldly and all encompassing love. And that, my friends, was superb.