The Carpathian Novels

The Carpathian Series

I’m six books in to the currently twenty-seven novels Christine Feehan has written about the species she calls the Carpathians. They can live for centuries, though they can be killed or die from disease, especially the children. The race is dying out as few pregnancies go to term, the children born mostly die in their first year, and of those who survive the vast majority are male. Why this is happening hasn’t yet been answered.

The species requires human blood to survive but does not kill or harm those they feed on. They can create illusions in the human mind so that the person preyed upon feels no fear and has no memory of the incident. The males of the species require a lifemate to keep their emotions. Without one, after living two hundred years, they lose their ability to see colors and feel emotions. Their sense of duty to their race’s survival is the only thing that may keep them from turning to the thrill of terrorizing and killing their prey, the one emotion left to them, which is a sacrilege to their race and turns them into the undead—the vampire who kills humans and unturned Carpathians alike.

Book by Book

The Dark Prince introduces Mikhail, the Prince of his people, who holds the race together and searches for answers to their possible extinction. His lifemate turns out to be a human woman with psychic powers who he successfully turns into a Carpathian. This had been tried on normal human women by vampires, but they went mad and had to be destroyed by Carpathian hunters for preying on children. Female Carpathians don’t turn—except maybe by a vampire, which hasn’t been said yet—and are the light to the males’ darkness, their only hope not to lose themselves to the darkness within.

Dark Desire concentrates on the Prince’s brother, Jacques, who is tortured by a vampire and buried alive for years. He loses his memory of who he is but hears the thoughts of his lifemate, a child of a Carpathian male and a human woman, and draws her to his rescue—Carpathians sleep buried in the earth, which rejuvenates them. She knows nothing about the race and thinks she has a blood disorder that requires frequent blood transfusions.

Dark Gold is the story of Aidan, an ancient—a Carpathian who has been alive for centuries—living in San Francisco to combat vampires who have congregated in the area. He finds a psychic human woman, his lifemate, who he turns. Most of the book concentrates on her struggle to adjust to becoming another species.

Dark Magic is about the Carpathians most skilled healer and vampire hunter, Gregori. He is also one of their oldest males and close to turning. The Prince’s lifemate is attacked while pregnant with a daughter. Gregori heals both mother and child and imprints himself upon the child to create his lifemate. Claiming her at the age of twenty-three, very young for a Carpathian, she struggles to accept the curtailment of her freedom. Lifemates cannot be apart for any stretch of time without emotional and physical repercussions, and males are naturally possessive and patriarchal.

Interesting stories but the books started to become repetitive until I read the following one. I’ll post about it next week.