Review: Dark Guardian (Carpathians #9) by Christine Feehan

Synopsis (via Goodreads Amazon): For centuries, Lucian Daratrazanoff has been the dark guardian of his people, living a bleak existence of violence and horror. But now his kind, the Carpathians, are dying out or falling prey to the souless life of vampires. Only by finding and claiming his destined life mate can Lucian stave off the ever present lure of the soulless evil. Part man, part predator, Lucian will stop at nothing in order to find his mate. Jaxon Montgomery is anything but ordinary. She is stubborn, independent, but a damn good cop with an unerring sense of impending danger. Honed by a traumatic childhood and years of training in Special Forces, she is determined to sacrifice everything to protect others. But now the monster from her childhood has returned, and anyone who befriends her is in mortal danger. The last thing she needs is to become involved with a man, even one as mesmerizing and bewitching as Lucian Daratrazanoff. But Lucian will not be rebuffed, and is determined to possess her, to guard her for all time, to make her his life mate...and save his soul.

My Take: Couple of things: It took me two months to finish this book.  TWO.MONTHS.  I just ... I don't have words.  I usually read a book a day.  Maybe it'll take two days.  But two months?  Arrgh.  Not cool.  It's even sadder that it's a re-read.  Re-reads are fast.  Usually.  The next thing is that Amazon lists this book as Book #8 in the Carpathians series while Goodreads has it as Book #9.  It's enough to make a girl's head spin.

So, why did this book take me so long to finish?  I don't know.  It's a decent book.  I like the series.  The one thing I keep coming back to is that reading these books is like walking through quicksand- every turn of the page is a struggle.  Everything is epic and mind-blowing and there are no easy days in this universe.  It's hard to maintain that level of reading intensity. Some days you just want to have a silly Jace and Clary interaction.  And yet, you have to keep slogging through the epicness until you get to the final climactic battle.

That said, this isn't a bad book.  I can't exactly say that it progresses the overall Carpathian's story arc but both Lucian and Jaxx are fun characters.  This is just one of those series/books that you have to be in the right frame of mind to read.

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