The first novel in the long-running Fever series from Karen Marie Moning, Darkfever introduces us to the world of MacKayla “Mac” Lane. A naive young woman from small-town Georgia, Mac leaves her safe home to travel to Dublin after her older sister is murdered there while studying abroad at Trinity College.
Arriving in Dublin, Mac is shocked to learn that her sister has been behaving strangely – not attending classes, avoiding friends, losing weight, and generally acting out of character. On the way home from her sister’s apartment one evening, Mac is trapped in heavy fog and wanders into Barron’s Books and Baubles. The bookstore is located at the edge of a seedy area of town, something Mac is intrigued and disturbed by. She inquires after some odd things her sister has mentioned – things that turn out to be supernatural.
After a harrowing encounter with the owner of the bookstore, Jericho Barrons, in her hotel room Mac learns that fairies are real, that they are either light (seelie) or dark (unseelie) and that her sister was searching for an unseelie artifact – a dark book of magic created by the Unseelie King. To make matters worse, Mac discovers that she can actually see the fairies running amok in Dublin and terrorizing the city. She is one of a long line of “sidhe-seers” with the ability to not only look beyond the glamours cast by the fae, but to touch them and stop them in their tracks. Mac must learn to work with the imperious Jericho to attempt to stop the unseelie from bringing about the end of the world.
Recommended for other fans of Moning’s work (the Highlander series) or series like Black Dagger Brotherhood.