Faefever by Karen Marie Moning

MacKayla Lane grew up a golden child, loved by her parents, and her twin sister, and in the beautiful warmth of the American South, she thought that nothing could change her world.

Until her sister, Alina, was killed in Dublin, Ireland. Unable to bear the thought of her sister's killer roaming free, she followed her sister and tried to get the Irish Police, the Garda, to catch Alina's killer. When they could or would not, she dyed her hair, disguised herself, and vowed to not leave Dublin until her sister's killer was dead or caught.

Along the way, she has discovered several things about herself and her sister. For one thing, they were adopted, and for a second, both had the power to see Fairies, being Sidhe-seers. And MacKayla has the power to see and track the Faerie Hollows, the eight treasures of Seelie and Unseelie. Faeries, to her shock, are not something out of a Disney movie. They are impossibly old and alien to humanity, the Unseelie more than the Seelie.

To survive on the cold, wet streets of Dublin, MacKayla allied herself with Jericho Barrons, the owner of a Bookstore called Barrons' Books and Baubles. Not a typical American bookstore stocking bestsellers and do-it-yourself books, but an antiquarian bookstore that also sells... other things. The price for his help is to help him using her powers to track down magical items for himself and his clientele, and MacKayla finds him to be irritating, but devastatingly handsome and sexy. So far, she hasn't succumbed to his charms, but she's tempted.

She's also tempted by a Seelie Prince named V'Lane, a sex to death Fae who can literally ravish a woman to death. If the Fae stops before that point, the woman or man will become Pri-ya, a slave to the sexual desires of the Fae, a fate MacKayla regards with horror.

As Samhain draws closer, the walls between the worlds are melting, and since those walls also imprison the Unseelie Fae, if they crumble, the really old Unseelie will be freed to wreak havoc on Dublin and the entire world. Already, areas of the city are going dark and forgotten, no longer showing up on any maps, taken over by the shades and downright deadly to venture in after dark.

There are other Sidhe-seers in Dublin, but they are headed by a woman named Rowena, who doesn't trust MacKayla, and thinks of her as a foolish child because she won't let herself be guided by Rowena's greater wisdom. Most of the Sidhe-seers side with Rowena, but a few are annoyed by her high-handedness, and would support MacKayla, if it didn't mean being thrown out into a world growing altogether deadlier by the day to fend for themselves alone.

Mac has also learned something about Barrons that makes her mistrust him: that he has a pair of Unseelie "shifting silvers", mirrors that allow him to travel anywhere he wishes to go. Mac is afraid that Barrons is a Fae, or is possessed by a Fae, just like Alina's former lover and killer, the Lord Master. When she sees him exiting the Shifting Silver carrying the body of a dead woman, she feels she has been stupid to trust him and wonders if he is truly on her side or working against her.

So she turns to V'Lane for help with the Sidhe-seers, but won't allow him to love her in payment. Instead she bargains with him and recieves his name, to carry on her tongue, to summon him when she is in need. But showing up with V'Lane in tow sets Rowena against her even more, and since Mac won't give up the Sidhe Spear, the only thing that can keep her safe, as it can kill any Sidhe, Seelie or Unseelie, Rowena believes Mac thinks that only she knows best. But while Mac thinks that Rowena should get over herself, she thinks that Rowena needs to get out on the streets more and live in the real world that Mac has to deal with every day.

Still, Mac makes contact with Dani, a young Sidhe-seer who is very streetwise, and keeps in contact with the other young Sidhe-seers through her. They reveal that if Mac gives Rowena the amulet of D'jai for the ritual they must do on Samhain, Rowena will trust Mac.

But the Sidhe-seers aren't the only ones on Mac's side now, even if reluctantly. A human Inspector named Jayne, once a thorn in Mac's side, was converted by her after a meal of Unseelie flesh and a trip around the streets with his newly-opened eyes. Now, in return for more Unseelie Flesh, he keeps her notified about crimes with a Sidhe component.

Meanwhile, Mac takes lessons from Barrons on how to resist the Voice, a method of control used by both Barrons and the Lord Master. And as Samhain draws nearer, she asks him to help a young Druid named Christian MacKeltar and his uncles in their quest to keep the walls between the worlds up and strong in the face of their growing disintegration. When he agrees, she thinks the problems are solved. But is Barrons truly on her side, or is he working with those who want to bring down the world. Can she trust him, or is she well and truly screwed?

This was a very dark book, with a very dark ending, but there promises to be at least another book, so I don't feel completely cast down by the darkness of the ending, although, since you get so caught up in Mac's problems and point of view in the story, the ending feels rather like a bad dream you want to wake up from... but can't.

This isn't to say that the book is completely depressing, but it's plenty depressing to read. However, the author says, essentially, that you can't know how bad things are until they completely go to shit, and only then can you rise to some kind of balance. Or, dark cannot exist without light and vice versa. I know I'm putting this badly, but Mac can't show us the depths of her strength without completely losing it and fighting back to come out of it, so, in her opinion, it had to happen.

Well, maybe so, but the ending wasn't fun to read. In fact, there is no redeeming point of light amidst the darkness. Mac is alive, but her life is completely in the toilet, in a place she wouldn't have wanted to live through at the beginning of the novel. Don't expect any kind of happy ending, or even a neutral one here. This is as unremittingly bad as it gets.

And yet, I will read the next novel, just to see how Mac gets out of the situation she was in at the end of this book. This isn't the kind of series I would read more than once, nor would I recommend it to a friend, based on the ending to this novel. I might be persuaded to change my mind by the next, but it's going to have to be a seriously kick-ass novel.

By the by, it can happen. I also felt this way after reading the second book in the Deed of Paksenarrion Trilogy by Elizabeth Moon, and Ms. Moon definitely pulled it off. Let's see if Ms. Moning can, too.