Review: Iced – Karen Marie Moning

The year is 1 AWC—After the Wall Crash. The Fae are free and hunting us. It’s a war zone out there, and no two days are alike. I’m Dani O’Malley, the chaos-filled streets of Dublin are my home, and there’s no place I’d rather be.

Dani “Mega” O’Malley plays by her own set of rules—and in a world overrun by Dark Fae, her biggest rule is: Do what it takes to survive. Possessing rare talents and the all-powerful Sword of Light, Dani is more than equipped for the task. In fact, she’s one of the rare humans who can defend themselves against the Unseelie. But now, amid the pandemonium, her greatest gifts have turned into serious liabilities.

Dani’s ex–best friend, MacKayla Lane, wants her dead, the terrifying Unseelie princes have put a price on her head, and Inspector Jayne, the head of the police force, is after her sword and will stop at nothing to get it. What’s more, people are being mysteriously frozen to death all over the city, encased on the spot in sub-zero, icy tableaux.

When Dublin’s most seductive nightclub gets blanketed in hoarfrost, Dani finds herself at the mercy of Ryodan, the club’s ruthless, immortal owner. He needs her quick wit and exceptional skill to figure out what’s freezing Fae and humans dead in their tracks—and Ryodan will do anything to ensure her compliance.

Dodging bullets, fangs, and fists, Dani must strike treacherous bargains and make desperate alliances to save her beloved Dublin—before everything and everyone in it gets iced.

Series:  Dani O’Malley #1
Release Date:  October 30, 2012
Publisher:  Delacourte Press
Source:  Amazon, via my own wallet
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Reviewer’s Thoughts:

I love the Fever world, so I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure where the storyline would go with Dani as the main character for the next three books.  I wasn’t a huge Dani fan in Mac’s books, so I wasn’t sure I was going to want to read about the goings on in Dublin from Dani’s perspective.  I’m glad I got over myself .

WARNING:  If you haven’t read any of the first 5 books in the Fever series, definitely DO NOT pick up ICED and think you’ll be able to follow along.  As one of the many who follows the series, I was a bit lost with all the acronyms and references to the previous books that get thrown out as ICED moves along.  

One year after the wall between Fairy and our world comes down, Dani O’Malley roams the streets of Dublin trying to protect humans and make them more aware of the Fae that are roaming around waiting for a tasty snack.  Dani still keeps in contact with her Sidhe-Seerer friends at the Abbey, but she generally out hunting on her own, hanging with her friend Dancer, helping Inspector James with the Fae he’s captured or trying to avoid Mac (who she’s convinced is trying to kill her).  But when Ryodan, club owner, friend of Barrons and all around mysterious man, “encourages” Dani to figure out what froze when of the levels of his club, Dani will use every human, Unseelie Prince and Ryodan tool at her disposal to try and stop Dublin from freezing over.

It’s hard to believe that Dani is only fourteen years old, considering what she’s out doing on a nightly basis.  However, there are many times when her age is very apparent.  I spent a lot of time flip flopping between being irritated with her and her ADD to feeling bad that she has lost her youth to fighting Fae. Dani causes a lot of her problems, mostly because she is extremely impulsive.  She rarely stops to think what her actions might cause and then drowns in grief when things don’t exactly work out the way they should.

In a lot of ways, she reminds me of Mac when we first met her.  But she also has been hardened by all the Fae ‘crap’ she’s had to deal with her in fourteen years.  Mac didn’t know about any of this until she came looking for answers to Alina’s death.  Dani has been shoved into the face of this and made to do bad things because of the Fae.  While she wants to do what’s right, she has a hard time accepting what she’s done for others or what they’ve done to her in an attempt to gain power.

So in the middle of Dani trying to figure out just where her place is in the world, she gets stuck between Ryodan and Christian Mackelter in their attempts to control/protect her.  Ryodan, one of the nine, who like Barrons, cannot be killed, wants Dani with him.  He’s overly protective of her and seems to know something about Dani that she (and us) don’t.  If you thought Barrons was a complete ass most of the time, he is exceptionally nice compared to Ryodan.  It’s hard to figure out just why Ryodan has an interest in Dani, but he’s not willing to let anyone else get close to her.  While you REALLY want to hate Ryodan, especially with some of the things he says and does to Dani, you get the feeling that deep down there is a connection between the two of them that they are both fighting.  What that connection is, I don’t know (and KMM has said he’s not her father), but it’s something that pulls the two of them together even if they vow that can’t stand each other.

On the other side is Christian.  Christian is going through a transformation, from the highlander who helped keep the walls between Fae and our world up, to an Unseelie Prince.  Something happened to Christian when he was stuck in the mirrors and he spends most of ICED transforming into a full fledge Unseele Prince.  But that transformation doesn’t stop him from fixating on Dani.  He doesn’t see Dani as a fourteen year old girl, but rather a maturing version of the woman he loves and vows to have.  While he may do horrible things to other human woman, he swears he would never hurt Dani.  And many times, he manages to get to Dani in time to save her from whatever disaster she’s found herself in.  To me, it was hard to hate Christian.  Sure he’s an Unseelie Prince who’s in our world to cause all sorts of trouble, but we get those glimpses to the human side of Christian, which makes me hope there is some way to salvage him in the end.

A lot happens in this story and you really need to make sure you’re paying attention to ensure you don’t miss anything.  If Dani trying to figure out what the Hoar Frost King (HFK) and Crimson Hag are out to do next isn’t enough, we have Cruce messing around with poor Kat and the Sidhe-Seers at the Abbey.  I know eventually everything will tie together, but it’s a lot to try and process.  I recommend reading this one slowly and take everything in.  Days later, that’s when all your questions will emerge and you realize you have to wait another year to get the answers.