Blood Fever

Bloodfever, by Karen Marie Moning, is the sequel to a book called "Darkfever". In that book, the heroine, MacKayla Lane, was informed of the death of her sister in Dublin, Ireland. The Garda, the Irish police, treated it as an open and shut case, and MacKayla went to Ireland to try and find her sister Alina's killer.

When she got there, she found out that she is of a long-forgotten bloodline called the SidheSeers, which allows her to see Sidhe, or Faeries. There are two bloodlines of Sidhe, the Seelie, or Light Fae, and the Unseelie, or Dark Fae. The differences between the two are minimal, but the Seelie signed a compact that will not allow them to take the life of a human (according to one SidheSeer in this book, not even all of them follow it, only very few do). MacKayla was nearly killed, but saved by a man named Jericho Barrons who gave her a job at his store. She cut her long blonde hair and dyed it black to diguise herself and fit in.

In Bloodfever, MacKayla is still working for Barrons when she is approached by a Guarda who tells her that her sister's case probably won't be solved. When Jericho shows up, the Guarda attempts to question him, too, and goes off with him. Shortly after, one of MacKayla's co-workers, who has a crush on Barrons, shows up and grills MacKayla about what she and Barron were doing together. Mac refuses to tell her, and that night, Mac is attacked by shadows, who were let into the shop when the lights were turned off. She manages to deal with most of them by moving through the shop with flashlights, and turning on the lights one by one. But when she is down to the last one, she trips over an ottoman and loses her flashlights. She lights matches, one by one, but they aren't enough to keep it away from her. She is saved by a Seelie Sidhe named V'lane, but she doesn't trust him as he is a sex to death sidhe, which means that once he has his way with you, you are brain-blasted and addicted to having sex with him. In agreement for his getting rid of the shadow, she agrees to talk with him for an hour. A human hour, not a Sidhe hour.

She also has a glimpse of a figure like Death, tall and garbed head to foot in black, head covered by a hood. She throws her flashlight at it, but it passes through, and she isn't sure if it ia an actual manifestation of death or a hallucination. When she sees it later and Barrons can't, she assumes it is merely a hallucination.

She and Barrons are after the same thing, a book, one of the Sidhe Hallows known as the Sinsar Dubh or "Dark Book". This is one of the eight major relics of the Fae. There are four for each branch of the Fae, from the Seelie there are the Sword, the Stone, the Spear and the Cauldron, and from the Unseelie, the amulet, the box, the mirror and the Book (the Sinsar Dubh). As a Sidheseer, MacKayla can feel the book, but its very darkness and power causes her to black out. Barrons knows where to look for the book, but cannot himself feel it. Thus, they are formed into a very uneasy truce.

Barrons takes MacKayla to an auction where pieces of art and other rare and one of a kind items are sold, and Barrons buys a few items, but is really interested in an amulet that is being sold there. An old man, obviously dying, buys it, certain it will keep him alive, healthy and immortal. Barrons wants MacKayla to steal it back, sure it is a faery object of power, perhaps even the Unseelie Hollow of the amulet. But, a week later, when they break in to steal it, it is already gone, stolen by someone else. And that isn't all. All of the humans, guards and household staff, on the estate have been slaughtered.

In the middle of all this, V'lane steals MacKayla away to talk to her. He also wants to know about the Sinsar Dubh, and where it may be found. MacKayla tells him who might have it, and that there is an Unseelie who has been bringing other Unseelie to the human world. V'lane asks if she wants this Unseelie dead, and she says yes. V'lane leaves her to deal with it, and MacKayla finds that her sister is there, too. After fighting against the appearance of her sister, she joins her, and they talk. MacKayla begs her sister's forgiveness for not being reachable while her sister was dying, and her sister forgives her. They spend six hours together before V'lane sends MacKayla back to the real world... where she finds an entire month has passed.

Barrons is furious with her, and wants to tattoo her to track her when he cannot find her. He didn't even know she was alive. MacKayla fights back, and instead, he makes her agree to wear an armlet that will allow him to track her if she should go missing again. MacKayla contacts the organization of Sidheseers, under the cover of the PHI message delivery company, and the leader, Rowena, asks MacKayla to join them. But MacKayla is upset that twice before Rowena left her to die, and declines. Rowena wants her as a tool and MacKayla is unwilling to be anyone's tool.

After her confrontation with Rowena, she goes to a bar to have a drink, and meets a man who knew her sister. She talks with him, but gets a call and must return home. Along the way, she realizes she is seeing many, many more Unseelie Sidhe in the streets, about 1 for every 10 humans. Obviously, things have changed while she was gone. Some of them start chasing her, and she flees back on foot in the direction of Barrons' bookshop. All the cabs she sees are being driven by the Sidhe she calls "Rhino-boys", who have faces like a Rhino's, and small, weak bodies. But since faeries can disguise themselves with glamour, no human can tell the difference.

As she flees, she runs into "Death" again, but this time, she is suprised to find out he is very much real. In reality, he is Malluce, the part-sidhe vampire she defeated in the last book. Since the spearhead she stabbed him with destroys Sidhe, it has only been destroying the sidhe parts of him. He is in constant pain and agony, thanks to her, and he wants his revenge. He strips her of all her things and begins breaking parts of her slowly, to prolong her agony.

With the cuff Barrons gave her stripped away, she has no hope of rescue, and so she taunts Malluce in a last gesture of defiance even as he inflicts more damage on her, enough to finally kill her, she hopes. But Barrons finds her, and she is forced to resort to an extremely disgusting act to stay alive, eating the flesh of an Unseelie Sidhe. But will it be enough to save her when Malluce catches up with her and Barrons once more?

I really enjoyed this book. The Fae are strange and creepy enough to make you believe that they are real, and although MacKayla makes some decisions that in other cases might make you upset with her or squick you out (Eating Unseelie Flesh being one example), the author roots us in her perceptions so deeply that you understand *why* she is doing the things she is, and sympathize with her, rather than getting angry with her and calling her stupid.

Of course, this being a novel with a strong romantic element, MacKayla finds herself pulled in several different romantic directions, to V'Lane, to Barrons her boss (even as she flatly denies interest in him and thinks he could never be interested in her- yet he's always complaining about her clothes being too tarty, which shows he is noticing them, and he wouldn't notice or care if he *weren't* interested), and now with Christian, the man who knew her sister. She has another man express interest in her during the novel, but dismisses him and puts him down to his face even though she wants his interest, because she's afraid he might get caught up the war with the Fae and be killed, adding to what she sees as her sins.

As yet, of course, we can't exactly cheer for any of these men to end up with her. V'Lane and Barrons want something from her, different in each case, and at this point, Christian is too much of a cipher for us to know much about them. If the series holds true to most models of this type, expect MacKayla to veer from one to another with amazing regularity before finally ending up with one, and probably Barrons.

Next up, Sword of Darkness by Kinley MacGregor (Sherrilyn Kenyon's other pen name).