Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For those who are fans of the "Dark" series, this is the long awaited story of the oldest of five De La Cruz brothers, Zacarias. Unlike a lot of Feehan's books which roam everywhere, this particular story takes place almost entirely on his Peru ranch. After many centuries Zacarias has decided to end it all. He feels that everything he needed to accomplish for the Carpathian people is done. What he didn't plan on was his lifemate finding him and dragging him out of the sun. Marguarita is his lifemate and cannot speak because of a horrible attack on her throat by a vampire. Due to her inability to talk, Zacarias cannot figure out why this human woman affects him so. While he does not see in colors, he begins to feel things and he initially believes Marguarita may be a mage trying to entrap him. Although there are a couple of serious run-ins with one of the Malinov brothers, Ruslan, and a random drug lord, almost the entire book is the story of Zacarias and Marguarita coming to terms with each other. It's not an easy time because Marguarita is very determined and Zacarias is almost completely savage from his long centuries of hunting and of a deadly secret in his past. I enjoyed this book by Feehan, and was surprised at the amount of negative reviews. For those of you have read other reviews by me, you probably know I can be pretty critical. However, I thought Feehan did a wonderful job bringing Zacarias forward from his animalistic tendencies and making him a decent lifemate for Marguarita. The book moved along at a good pace, and it wasn't burdened down with too many action scenes. A few complaints - I enjoyed Marguarita, but I feel we didn't get to know her as well as Zacarias. Feehan didn't do as good of a job developing her as she did Zac. Because this is Peru, there was very little interaction with previous Feehan "Dark" characters - only one very brief scene with Dominic and Solange. Additionally, I was quite disappointed that we did not get a scene with Zacarias and his other four brothers. All through the South American books, the brothers have been completely and totally concerned about their beloved brother, Zacarias, but we never got to see a scene where they realize he has a lifemate. And lastly - my main reason for four stars instead of five - the so-called Carpathian foreign language. Feehan needs to drop the constant sayings and subsequent translations from her books. In this particular book the language was used fairly frequently. Even Zacarias had to translate them to himself! LOL! We also had the obligatory 30 pages of Carpathian appendix at the end of the book. It is amazing to me how Feehan believes we would be happy paying for this. However, I guess there is no point in ranting. This language was a huge mistake on her part. I suspect the author knows it, as it has been told to her on forums, e-mails and reviews, but she is obviously too stubborn to let it go. Eventually it may be her downfall, as more and more reviews are mentioning it.