Fever Review

“Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind.

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.

In the sequel to Lauren DeStefano’s harrowing Wither, Rhine must decide if freedom is worth the price - now that she has more to lose than ever.”

After the huge success of Wither, Fever has to be one of the most anticipated sequels of this year. I really didn’t know where Lauren was going to take us in this book and I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, Fever picks up immediately where Wither left off with Rhine and Gabriel escaping the mansion AKA the house of horrors with the creepy basement and horrific experiments. They continue on their mission to find Rhine’s twin brother Rowan whilst at the same time finding out that being free isn’t as easy as they thought it would be. Along the way, they meet “ze crazy madame” who has to be one of the best characters in this book. I adored the false vibrancy of the carnival setting with its dark and seedy undertones but just as you settle into the story, the setting changes again and again and again as Rhine and Gabriel travel further along their journey.

One of the things I like about sequels is that we get to see character development and Fever is of no exception but I’m deliberately holding out on you here as by expanding on this, I would be giving too much away. What I will say though is that one of the most confusing things for me about Fever is the relationship between Rhine and Gabriel. Yes, they’ve escaped together and I know that they care about each other but sometimes I can’t work out whether there is any romance/love there? Do they even know themselves how they feel about each other? Also, I couldn’t work out why Rhine continues to wear her wedding ring throughout the entire book even though it must have been a slap in the face for Gabriel every time he saw it? This is a past she is running away from, remember. I’m sure this intentional and it is a case of them trying to figure out their feelings, I just hope that we find some resolve in the third and final book. So far, this series has had me questioning whether it is better to be imprisoned in comfortable surroundings and treated like a queen or suffer in poverty with your freedom in hand. I’m not sure if I could answer that question right now to be honest.

I can’t tell you how much I adore Lauren’s writing style that is lyrically beautiful at times but never fails to hold my attention. Fever was a very worthy sequel and with that ending? Dear God, we’re going to need the next book STAT.

Fever was published on 16th February, 2012 in the UK and 21st February, 2012 in the US. To find out more about Lauren Destefano and her books, please click here.