This review was first posted on http://www.rubysreads.com. 
 All I can say is OMG. So much happened in this book I don't know if I can adequately describe it. I'd definitely flub a recap on this one. There'd be too much backtracking and a lot of me saying "Oh, and then..." So I decided to challenge myself to summing up Bloodfever in thirty words. Let's see if I can do it: 
 Mac still in Dublin, exploring powers. Barrons is hot. What is he? Mac is in the dark. Mac gets hurt and does gross stuff to heal. Ending brings new questions. 
 Huh. I kind of feel like I just wrote a haiku. What, you want more? Okay, here's the run down. Mac's story picks up pretty much where we left off in Darkfever. She's bruised, battered and still bent on getting vengeance for her sister, Alina's, death. She's grown accustomed to the idea of living in Dublin, but misses her old life. Understandably. But, basically, Mac's fumbling around in the dark. She's doing her own research at Barrons' bookstore (where she also, ultimately, works) and she's keeping her notebook, but everyone around her is keeping his or her mouth shut tight. No one wants to tell Mac anything, at least not without a price she doesn't want to pay. 
 This is the book where Mac finally begins to realize that she can't judge the events of her new life by the rules of the old. The values and social mores of her childhood, of the South, don't apply in Fae-ridden Dublin. It's a lesson she learns the hard way--and I mean hard. No, excruciating. I have a feeling I'm in for an angst-ridden week. All I gotta say is that there darn well better be a happy ending waiting for me at the end of it all. 
 But you want the quick and dirty, right? What worked, what I liked, what didn't work and what I hated. Hm, that's a tall order. I admit that I wasn't sucked into this novel the way I was into Darkfever. It took me a couple of chapters before I got to the point where I was telling my students we were going to have an entire day of silent reading so I wouldn't have to put it down. Yes, I was joking about that last part. Sort of. No, I was. Seriously! 
 Okay, a lot of the first part of the novel is recap stuff, which is good because it's been a while since I read Darkfever. There's a lot of Mac getting comfortable at Barrons Books and Baubles. She does some nesting, bringing the South to Ireland, familiarity into her new, mind-bogglingly strange reality. It turns out that there is no way for Mac to be prepared for what's ahead of her. She suffers a lot in Bloodfever, which also means that she grows a lot. This book is the bridge that we needed to have if this was going to be a series. And it's the London Bridge of bridges, but it's still a bridge. You cannot read this series out of order, so don't even try. 
 Actually, now that I've really started thinking about it, Bloodfever was more like a puzzle piece. It's a good read in its own right, but we're not going to know how important all the things we learned or that Mac experienced or that anyone said for a while yet. What I'm hoping for is a Prisoner of Azkaban kind of revelation, where we see how many threads Moning has tied into each book without ever letting on that she was doing it. I can't wait. 
 I cannot write a review of this book without touching on Barrons. He's a total enigma and Moning does a fantastic job of driving me crazy trying to figure out his agenda, his motive and, most of all, his identity. It's obvious that he cares about Mac, but equally obvious that he's not about to let whatever he feels for her interfere with his master plan. My reaction to him is probably yours: it varies between infuriated at how little he shares and swooning over his masterful, sometimes tender, sarcastic attitude. Yes, I think sarcasm is sexy. Oh no, my secret is out! 
 For me, though, Moning's biggest accomplishment with this book is the way she leaves me craving more. She's like a death-by-reading-fae. I want to gobble the rest of the books up just so I can get to the end of the series, not remembering that I'll be devastated at having nothing left to look forward to when I have. I'll be downloading Faefever on my Kindle as soon as I finish this review. I have never loved wireless technology so much as I do right now.