Dark Challenge by Christine Feehan

Narrated by Sean Crisden

It’s been years since I read Dark Challenge. I remember glomming on all the Dark books, starting with Dark Prince. I think I read about ten in a row. My reading taste has changed a bit since then and the book is somewhat dated now anyway, having originally been published way back in 2000.

My tolerance for the fated mate trope had lessened over the years. I’ve come to appreciate the courtship in romance even more and in this kind of story, there really isn’t any. Julian and Desari love each other because they do. It does take a certain leap of faith as reader/listener to accept that and I’m not as good at it as I once was.

Julian Savage is an ancient Carpathian. He has been alone for most of his life – after unintentionally sharing blood with a vampire (who can now track people through him because of it), he separated himself from his twin brother, Aidan, and from close contact with other Carpathians. He is about to “greet the dawn” (i.e. commit Carpathian suicide) but agrees to one last task for Gregori, the Carpathian healer. A human group of vampire hunters have targeted singer Desari and Julian is to warn her of the danger.

Upon hearing her beautiful voice however, Julian sees colours and feels emotions for the first time in centuries – she is his lifemate. The rest of the story is about Julian fitting into Desari’s family group (not so easy for a man who has lived largely alone for so long) and Desari bucking against the protection Julian insists on (this includes obedience; something Desari is not terribly fond of) and to defeating the darkness (vampire stain) which lives inside Julian so that he and Desari may be free.

There are certain phrases which are repeated over and over again in the Dark books. In audio format, those phrases are even more obvious as the ear cannot skim what the eye can. Julian and all the other Carpathian males are always saying “I can do no other than…” (usually protect you but this last part varies somewhat).

The narration was not a success. I’ve heard Sean Crisden before (he jointly narrated Liz Reinhardt’s Fall Guy and I liked his work in that audiobook). Here, in the narrative parts of the book, he almost sounds bored. These portions of the story are rushed – only tiny gaps left between fullstops and there was no, or little, pausing for emotional resonance. The narrative stating “Desari was hurt and afraid” for example, could just as easily have been saying “the group packed up and got into the bus”. It came off sounding disinterested and toneless.

The saving grace was that when Mr. Crisden was narrating Julian’s voice or Desari’s, there was emotion present. The difference was stark and it made me realise what it could have been.

Julian is described in the text as having an Italian accent but this only shows in the narration when he uses Italian endearments, such as “cara” or “piccola”.  While it wasn’t in keeping with the text, at least it didn’t fall into the trap of making Julian sound like a stereotypical Transylvanian which, I have heard when someone has attempted Italian vampires in the past.

Desari (which Mr. Crisden pronounces “Desiree”) often sounds kind of whiny which isn’t consistent with her characterisation in the book but at least she had emotion in her voice and I did appreciate that her character tried to assert some small modicum of independence (even though it was mostly pointless).

The other main character in the story is Desari’s brother Darius. He sounds cold and unemotional – but that’s okay, because he’s supposed to. He hasn’t yet met his lifemate and he, too, is ancient and as such cannot see colours or feel emotions.

If only the narrative portions of the book had more emotion in them, I think I would have enjoyed the trip down memory lane that was Dark Challenge.  As it was, it was only okay for me.

Kaetrin

Narration:  C

Book Content:  C

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Graphic

Genre:  Paranormal Romance – vampire

Publisher:  Harper Audio

Dark Challenge was provided to AudioGals for review by Harper Audio.