Iced
Fever, Book #6
Dani O’Malley, Book #1
By Karen Marie Moning
ISBN# 9780385344401
Author’s Website: http://www.karenmoning.com/kmm/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
*Beware: Spoilers ahead!*
You will remember Dani from Karen Marie Moning’s popular Fever series; she was the young sidhe-seer that Mac took under her wing. Now Dani’s back with a series all her own, well kind of… it’s a trilogy inside the Fever series. Iced is the first installment of this new trilogy that Fever fans couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into.
Dublin is in total chaos since the walls between Faery and the human world has crashed, the city is flooded with deadly unseelie. Dani is out living on her own now that Mac has shunned her after finding out that Dani killed her sister and she tries not to be at the abbey too much as they are a bunch of mindless sheep, in her opinion. But Dani likes to be out on her own with no rules to follow and she especially likes hanging out with her best friend, Dancer.
Ryodan wants Dani to work for him, but she refuses. But when she gets a moment away from him in his own club she can’t resist the temptation to kill as many unseelie as she can; a decision that leaves her at Ryodan’s mercy. She is forced to work for him and behave or her friend and fellow sidhe-seer, Jo, will pay the price with her life.
Something strange is happening in Dublin. Areas are being covered in ice and freezing all the people present in mere seconds. Ryodan enlists Dani to help figure out what is causing it so that they can find out a way to stop it before it’s too late.
Meanwhile, Christian is turning into an Unseelie Prince and has found himself fixated on Dani, even though he knows she’s too young for him, but he’s willing to wait, but is his body and his new unseelie instinct ready to wait as well? And, when he comes up against Ryodan will there be any survivors?
I really enjoyed Moning’s Fever series and absolutely loved book #5, Shadowfever! But I have to admit that I had mixed feelings when I found out about these Dani books. I was never a huge fan of Dani and wasn’t sure how a trilogy centered on her would play out. But I’ve read several books that I didn’t think I’d like that I ended up loving, so I decided to give Iced a chance. Not to mention I didn’t want to be behind when Moning switches back to the regular Fever books when Dani’s trilogy is over.
I really wanted to like this book, but I’m sad to say I was greatly disappointed with it overall. First of all, the book is HUGE!! It was just shy of 500 pages and I felt a bit overwhelmed. Then, when I was reading it, I found myself incredibly bored throughout the majority of the novel with all of the thoughts brewing in Dani’s mind; she would go on and on about things that I just didn’t care about. I found the constant changes in points of view to be confusing as well and I didn’t really care what was going on with Kat and the abbey. Although I did enjoy getting into Christian’s head, and would have loved to have seen more from his eyes.
I also found that I forgot a lot of the things that happened in Shadowfever since I haven’t read it in over two years, when it was first published. I was constantly trying to remember little odds and ends. I could remember Christian was turning into an Unseelie Prince, but I couldn’t remember why. Was it from being in the silvers for so long? Eating the unseelie flesh? The ritual going wrong? I was surprised to feel so lost when I actually read the entire Fever series and I don’t think someone could come into this book without reading Fever and have any clue what was going on.
My favorite scenes were definitely the ones with the male posturing with Ryodan and Christian over Dani. I loved when they were trying to save her, with the help of Dancer, when she touched one of the frozen scenes. But of course I can’t imagine what this immature 14 year old girl had that would cause these grown men to go crazy over her like they did. Especially Ryodan who doesn’t like anyone. I remember how he always was with Mac, and Dani seems more immature than even her. The Ryodan/Christian competition reminds me a lot of the conflict between Barrons and V’lane, which I always enjoyed. But this time a few extra players were thrown in the mix in the form of Jo and Dancer. I’m hoping Dani ends up with Christian though; it’s hard for me to be team Ryodan with him boinking Jo all the time. And, Dancer is the only one even close to her age, but he’s pretty dull.
I understand that sometimes a first book in a series has some world and story building to do and it can sometimes come off as boring while all of that is going on. So, I’m hoping that is the problem with this book and that I’ll be able to get completely sucked into the next installment, Burned, that will hopefully invoke feelings that only Karen Marie Moning can.
