Romance novels always signal warning signs for me. It stems from the only other romance novel I have ever read. I was about 16 and had run out of things to read up north. I bought myself a mass market paperback that had the promise of a thrilling story. However, as the pages passed, I realized that all the book was about .. was sexual tension. I was so disappointed with is preoccupation with sex and not with the plot that I swore off romances -- assuming they were all like this. Boy, was I wrong! Darkfever was fantastic! The amount of research, both of the Irish Temple Bar District and of the ancient myths of the Fae in Ireland, captivated me. The narrator, Mac (as I was warned by Yaz) was a bit annoying at times, constantly referring to her own beauty but after a while, I grew to find her endearing. She is a Southern bell, who travels to Ireland to uncover the truth behind the brutal death of her sister, only to discover that she is a sidhe-seer (a human able to see through the mask -- or "glamour" -- of the Fae to their true hideous appearances). She teams up with the dreamy Jericho Barrons, a bookstore owner with too many dark secrets and the story just flies from there. At first, Barrons wasn't my favourite character but by the end of the book, I was softening up to him. Despite this being a romance novel, the focus is 99.9% geared towards the plot and story and the sexual tension only comes up every here and there. Barrons and Mac don't even like each other for the majority of the book. I am told it heats up later on in the series but I was happy to see the realisitic development! Plus, who doesn't love a steamy scene every here and there!! Looking forward to where their.. "relationship" will go. All in all, this was an exciting and rich read! Can't wait for the next one =).