By Christine Feehan, adapted by Dana Kurtin, illustrated by Zid & Imaginary Friends Studios (Berkley)
ISBN: 978-0-42521-783-2
Hard though it might be for us to imagine, there are people who go months at a time – even longer in rare cases – without reading a comicbook or graphic novel. Unbelievably these sad unfortunates derive their regular fun-fixes from other forms of entertainment such as TV, movies or even prose stories, so it’s just as well that every so often a brave creator from that side of the tracks makes moves to cross-pollinate by turning their favoured medium of creative expression into something we panel-pushers are more at home with.
Christine Feehan is an extraordinarily prolific and successful author of romantic fantasies and paranormal thrillers. Since 1999 she has produced a wealth of novels, novellas and short-stories, many of them for five distinct series which – like the book under review here – often interact with each other.
Her “Carpathian†novels deal with a savage but noble subspecies of vampire who eschew killing their human “blood donors†and hunt their murderously traditional cousins, determined to eradicate the monstrous horrors to extinction.
Amongst their many gifts are virtual immortality, shape-shifting, telepathy, flight, fantastic strength and speed and the power to manipulate lightning, but like all their kind they cannot abide sunlight…
Carpathians are an endangered species with few females, and if a male cannot find a “lifemate†he gradually withers; first losing the ability to see colour and experience emotion. Eventually all he can feel is the thrill of killing and he turns into a full, ravening undead vampire or commits suicide by “greeting the dawnâ€â€¦
This intriguing manga-style tome from 2007 adapts the 14th Carpathian yarn and originally appeared as a text tale in the anthology Hot Blooded in 2004, describing how dedicated animal rights activist Juliette Sangria meets her ideal man whilst raiding a hidden testing facility deep in the heart of the jungle…
With her younger sister Jasmine, Juliette raids the high-security Morrison Laboratory intent on releasing the many endangered big cats held there, but the pair have no idea what other horrors the lab perpetrates until Juliette discovers a beautiful, exotic man chained in a cell…
Riordan De La Cruz has been a long-suffering prisoner of vampire and human scientists who run the lab, poisoned, tortured and humiliated until he considered ending his own immortal life. However, when the woman touches him he feels a burst of power and emotion. Viewing colours for the first time in ages, the Carpathian realises that somehow he has found his one and only: his lifemate…
In a fit of passion, he bites her and, refuelled by her blood, destroys the facility…
With Jasmine apparently still inside…
Flown to safety in his arms, Juliette’s heart and mind are reeling with the intensity of the inexplicable passion she feels for this sublime stranger, but as the night passes and Riordan explains his history, nature and powers she realises his absurd assessment is true; they are bonded for ever…
With the vampires in hot pursuit the couple flee and, of necessity, Riordan feeds on her again, before, to restore his beloved, sharing his own invigorating blood with her. However Juliette has a fantastic secret of her own and when Riordan burrows into the Earth at dawn she reverts to her animal form to search for her lost sister.
Juliette is a Were-Jaguar and her people do not marry. Their males are cruel brutes who beat and force themselves upon were-females they capture. Propagation is usually by rape and with Jasmine and her cousin Solange unaccounted for, Juliette is terribly worried. Whilst the physically comatose Riordan speaks to her telepathically, Juliette searches all day and when he comes to her at night they discover a partially destroyed hut where Were-women were recently held…
The trails lead in different directions and male Jaguar tracks are everywhere, but as they ponder how to proceed a Master Vampire attacks and Riordan is severely hurt driving it off. Giving her blood to save him, Juliette is aware that she is changing. Soon she will be unable to walk in daylight too…
As Riordan sleeps Solange appears, recounting that the were-males are holding Jasmine in a distant cave. Unable to tolerate the sun in human form, Juliette becomes a cat for the last time and with her ferocious cousin heads for a showdown…
The frantic Carpathian, psychically bonded to her, desperately urges Juliette to wait for sunset but they cannot and rush the assembled brutes. The alpha male rips Juliette’s throat out, and as she lies dying Riordan appears in a clap of thunder and wielding lightning like a whip…
To save his lifemate, the enraged hunter converts her fully, forcing the Jaguar-essence from her torn body but giving her the mystic arsenal of a full Carpathian. When they next emerge from the nourishing jungle Earth they will hunt together, determined to destroy forever the unholy alliance of humans, Were-men and the Master Vampire…
Despite being squarely aimed at the broadly female and teenaged Supernatural bodice-ripper market, this strange romance has strong thread of action and good steady pace underpinning it, so lads too will get a big charge from the book, whilst hopefully traditional prose readers tempted by the adaptation will be impressed enough by the clean, slick black and white visuals to give other graphic novels a go…
© 2004 Christine Feehan. All rights reserved.