Dark Hope by Christine Feehan is a captivating paranormal romance that transports readers into a vividly imagined world. The novel explores the intense chemistry between a deliciously dark, brooding hero and a fierce, fearsome heroine. Feehan's storytelling prowess shines through as she weaves a tale of love, passion, and supernatural intrigue. Get ready to be swept away by this thrilling and seductive tale of forbidden love.

Normally, Christine Feehan books hit it out of the park for me no matter how repetitive the storyline seems. But with Dark Hope, I feel like it fell flat. I kept noticing how much Feehan kept repeating certain words and phrases and it became tiresome. Benedek was a different Carpathian than we’ve seen in previous books; he does not want the lifemate bond and is incredibly distrustful as a rule. It was nice to see that change and see him pursue Silke. The past few books have really focused on women with tarot decks passed down through generations, but I didn’t see Silke use her cards nearly as much as the previous women in this particular arc. I’m not sure if Feehan forgot about the cards or what happened. It just seemed out of sync with the current arc, especially when tarot cards are pictured at the beginning of the four different sections.

It does feel like these books keep getting shorter and shorter. Feehan has a large information section in the back of the books that takes up a lot of space. While reading the ebook version, the end of the story occurred at 85% because of her appendices. It makes it seem like there’s more to the story than there is, which makes the endings feel abrupt. We had so much buildup for the huge battle with Lillith’s demons and it took less than a chapter to defeat them - and a short chapter at that. It feels like so much action and storyline happened in the last two or three chapters. It moved too fast.

I feel like there was so much action in this book and no time for Benedek and Silke to spend together. They spend almost no time together, and I get it they’re soulmates. But I would still like to see more connections between lifemates. I’d love to see another couple like Dimitri and Skyler - they know they are lifemates but she has to grow up and get older. But they still spend a lot of time getting to know each other. Also Justice just escapes the gate like it’s nothing???? Randomly during the battle with Lillith’s demons?!?!?! Seems like a waste of time for the other Carpathian women guarding the other gates in previous books.

Overall, 3 stars. Not my favorite Carpathian story, but I do feel like we moved the general plot forward. Hopefully the next one will feel like more of a return to the original stories.

I've long been a fan of this series, and this newest installment filled me with joy. I found it to be compelling. We love a heroine who is fierce and protective of the people in her life. We love a hero that is shattered emotionally, but is strong, kind, and thoughtful to the person who teaches him what love really is.
This book has some dark moments, so go in prepared. Thankfully, as always, Feehan gives these scenes great care to the reader, and does everything she can to comfort the reader as you read through it. All traumas are in the past, not present, so there is an air of distance from them.
Give me a Demon Slayer and a Carpathian anytime please and thank you!

Dark Hope is a brilliantly hopeful and astoundingly transformative journey of two disconnected yet driven people who only want the best for those around them. Their driving focus is on their main goal of protection and goodwill. Caring little for themselves, they move ever on in the hope that their life is not in vain. When Fate brings them an opportunity for much more, they must choose to either accept it fully with no limitations, or walk away accepting the consequences.

Silke has grown up knowing what is expected of her. She has no doubt as to her purpose, or where she is headed. Instead, she is always moving ever forward in the knowledge that she is right where she needs to be. With an unknown future ahead of her, she will carefully walk towards it and try to accept it as best she can. Benedek has one goal in mind as he walks his journey and that is to find and claim his lifemate. He believes he is too broken and unworthy to ask for anything more. When he discovers his future holds more then he could possibly know, can he convince his lifemate to take a chance on him, or will his time finally come to and end?

Silke has lived her life with a single purpose, and while that is wonderful to have, it left her with little time for anything else. The small joys in life are necessary to make us feel complete. When Benedek beings to see those small joys as he looks at the world through Silke's eyes, he finally understands what a complete and happy like really is. He understands that connection is everything, and family and friends are what hold our world together. Silke helps to bring light and life into his dark and chaotic life. Together they bring each other purpose and hope for much more then they can ever imagine. They bring the other to life.

Christine Feehan once again delights and instructs her fellow readers to not lose sight of the people and things in our life that truly matters. They are what keeps our world intact and fills it with colors of joy and the warmth of hope. Let us never forget to hold those dear to us close every day and not lose the joy in watching the sunset or celebrating a birthday. For those are the things that truly matter and fill our life with imagination and love.

Once again, Christing Feehan brings danger, suspense, romance, and action to her latest book in the Dark paranormal romantic suspense series. A war with evil is coming and Silke Vriese Reinders has trained for this moment her entire life. She knows the only way to win is with the help of the Carpathians, and that she is fated to be the life-mate of an ancient supernatural Carpathian warrior.

Benedek Kovak, one of the oldest and most dangerous Carpathians, is on his way to Silke’s village of Nachtbloem in the Netherlands. With the impending danger, he and four other ancients have started their journey to find his life-mate and join her in battle. Can she fight back the darkness that is threatening to overpower him? Can they defeat the enemy and find their happily ever after?

Silke and Benedek are attracted to each other. Besides training her whole life to fight evil, Silke is a tarot card reader, a gardener, and a healer. She loves her life and her adoptive mother Fenja and her friend Tora, who is a Carpathian guarding a gate. She’s tenacious, considerate of others, intelligent, decisive, and values courage and duty. Benedek is unsure he can be saved from the darkness. He trusts few people and has a deep distrust of most. He’s patient, dangerous, matter-of-fact, and values loyalty and intellect above other traits. The secondary characters provided balance, opportunities for humor, support, and conflict. I hope some of them have their own story in future books in the series.
The novel is set in contemporary times and mainly in the Netherlands. The author does a great job of characterization, world-building and building atmosphere. Readers can easily feel themselves transported to the small village. The story has a few subplots that add to the high stakes and increase the risk.

The significant amount of danger and action, as well as the romance, kept me fully engaged and made this a true page turner for me. It’s a riveting story with protagonists that I liked and cheered on as they navigated their relationship and prepared for and fought evil. It contains the elements that I love in this genre of books. The book delivers on escapism through attraction, friendship, family, found family, romance, action, and love while also tackling serious issues including trust, respect, communication, betrayal, stressful situations, duty, loyalty, battling evil, and selfless sacrifice for others.

Overall, it was suspenseful, full of danger, and action-packed. The subplots tied together well, the main characters were strong and the ending was satisfactory, but also set up possibilities for future books. If you enjoy thrilling paranormal romantic suspense novels with strong male and female lead characters, then I recommend you check out this series.

Berkley Publishing Group and Christine Feehan provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The publication date is currently set for January 07, 2025. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

Silke Vriese Reinder has spent her young life as a demon slayer. She is also the repository for the soul of an ancient Carpathian, who is her lifemate. Silke has mostly been focused on the great battle with the big evil, Lillith, and her army that she knows is coming. Many of the advance guard of demons, vampire, mages, and assorted other bad guys have been assaulting Silke’s rural village. Silke knows she has a duty to Benedek Kovak, the millennials old Carpathian who arrives to make his claim; however, she is not sure about relinquishing her autonomy to a centuries old, set in his ways, very powerful man.

Benedek has come close to giving up hope of ever finding his fated mate as well as being on the verge of transitioning to something almost as bad as his enemies. The long years of constant fighting, the impending war, and his struggles against dark forces have pushed Benedek to the brink.
Once Silke and Bendek connect, they spend most of their time trying to negotiate terms of their mating while fighting against a new barrage of supernatural enemies. Having been trained from a very young age as a demon slayer, Silke is having a hard time letting go of her solitary life to partner up with Benedek even though she is inexplicably drawn to him.

This is book number thirty-four in the series. Things seem to be ramping up for the big battle as this story has a lot of fighting and training for Silke and less relationship emphasis than previous stories. The escalation on Lillith’s part is a strong portent for what is coming. Benedek’s companions will also be seeking their fated mates in the tales to come.

Christine Feehan is one of my favourite authors and I never say no to reading one of her books. Dark Hope is the latest installment in her Dark series. I love the Carpathians, and Benedeck was interesting in his initial reluctance to be bonded to his life mate. I did find overall though that I wish there had been more development of the relationship between Silke and Benedeck. Much of the book focuses more on the history of their people as well as battling of demons, vampires, and mages. Much of the relationship building is simply them going into each other's minds and seeing their history or feeling the other person's feelings. The ability for them to go into each other's minds actually takes away from the sense of tension or mystery. There is a cliffhanger at the end for Justice and I'm wondering where Feehan will take his character - evil demonic vampire or a misunderstood, pained hero.

Title: Dark Hope
Author: Christen Feehan
✩✩✩.5

💠Life Mates
💠Ancient Warrior
💠PNR
💠Demon Slayer

I am a huge fan of this series and own all the paperback. These Ancient warriors from the monastery have been some of my favorite. I really enjoyed Silke confidence and strong personality. Normally we see the FM with the struggles of acceptance but Benedek is the one that has to work through his feelings and past betrayals. I did feel this one was a little slower and not as much physical connection between Silke and Benedek. I really like the ending that seems to set up for maybe getting to see some of my favorite characters from previous books.

Over all a good addition to this series.

“𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒, 𝑆𝑖𝑙𝑘𝑒. 𝐴𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑚𝑦 𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒.”

What a wonderful series, every book is interesting and engaging and this book is no exemption. I do recommend starting at the series beginning though.

Great new entry in Feehan's Dark series. I love the ancients and how they have to learn to live in the modern world. This one was action packed and the characters were well written. Can't wait for the next in the series.

3.5 Stars

This is another solid addition to the series, the overall storyline running through the last few books has been really engaging and it’s keeping me very invested in the series. This book had a unique take with Benedek being unusually reluctant to form the lifemate bond. In the series it has typically been the heroine who doesn’t want to bond or is unsure and while Silke definitely had doubts, she was much more open to bonding than Benedek. I thought that was a refreshing change and enjoyed watching Benedek work through his past and realize his true feelings for Silke. And I loved what a strong woman Silke was, she knew how to handle anything thrown at her and took the time to think things through before reacting. I did feel like the middle of this book, maybe 50%-60% in, got a little bit slow and then the big battle at the end was very quickly wrapped up. I’m looking forward to the next book especially with how this one ended, seems like we might get to see some characters from past books which I’m really excited about. And I can’t end this review without once again saying, please give Justice a book, don’t just make him some big evil to fight, pretty please.

ARC provided by NetGalley/Berkley Publishing for an honest review.

Dark Hope, book 38 of the Dark Series by Christine Feehan @authorcfeehan. First, I am a massive fan of Christine’s & this book was no different!

I enjoyed this book about Silke & Benedek! My only complaint was it was a slow-starting book. Tropes: PNR, MF, SLOW SLOW BURN, Demon Slayer, Carpathian Ancient Hunter, Lifemate negotiations & HEA.

I ADORE, Christine Feehan! I love the Carpathian story line, and she is now taking it to a new level of expansion. I am super happy to see the continuation of the ancients finding their soulmates.

I had such a great time reading this book! I love this series, and I've enjoyed it from the start, and now that it's 34 books deep, and still going strong, that's great! We're about done with this run of tarot inspired books, I'm not sure if Justice, and , would be getting stories now, or be part of that, though they have been a part of what has tied these 4 books together. We'll see!

Silke is a demon slayer, and she knows she's the one that's going to have to deal with the battle against Lilith, and be the lifemate for the Carpathian for whom she holds the light of their soul. But she wants a partner, not to be dictated to, which is always a concern when dealing with anyone as old as the Carpathian men tend to be.

Benedek is one of the Ancients at the monastery-but the vow that they all made, to wait for their lifemate, he doesn't really believe in, he's never lived in a loving home, because his "parents" weren't healthy, and caused him a lot of issues. So theirs' was an interesting dynamic to read about!

I really enjoyed reading about their fight against Lilith and her army. She's learned from previous battles, which made it more difficult for them, plus they're in Silke's remote village, which added it's own unique challenges and benefits. It was just so thrilling to read, another great addition to the series!

This was another really fantastic read and I can't wait for whatever's next from Christine Feehan!