Dark Flame

Title - Dark Flame
Author - Alyson Noel
ISBN - 9780312590970
Publication Date July 2010

Plot - Dark Flame is the fourth book in the immortals series of books.  To be able to understand the plot of Dark Flame you must begin back with the original book with Damien and Ever, and Drina.  Ever comes to a town in California, having her life upended by the death of her parents.  She ends up making a new start in a new school but fast finds that she has this super connection to the world that allows her to hear people's thoughts and see people's auras.  She ends up meeting Damien, who seems to possess no aura, and Ever cannot hear his thoughts. When she finally confronts Damien about this fact he ends up telling her a story.  They seem to have had a past, and every time they are about to get together, Drina, Damien's ex, gets in the way and eliminates Ever.  In her rebirth in a new life the cycle starts all over again.  By the end of the first book Ever has eliminated Drina for the time being.

The next few books introduce us to the character of Roman.  He seems to have had a past with Ever and Damien as well, and he wants to exact some kind of a revenge on them.  Through a series of circumstances, Damien ends up drinking a potion that does not allow him to touch Ever for the rest of this life, thereby sentencing him to death.  Ever attempts to get a formula from Roman to counteract this.

By the time the reader reaches the novel, Dark Flame, Ever has created a spell to bind herself to Roman.  She believes that by doing this she will somehow be able to extract the formula away from him.  She is also dealing with jealousies that her friend has, as she has been turned an immortal with some elixir in book three and is now in love with Roman.  She feels that Ever is trying to get Roman away from her.  She also is developing powers of her own.  By the time Ever is able to break free from her spell, she convinces herself the straightforward method of asking might be best.  And just within reach of getting the antidote, a friend bursts in killing Roman and destroying the antidote, leaving Damien and Ever seemingly in a no win situation.

Critical Review - Dark Flame is the fourth book in the Immortals series. It develops the ongoing relationships between Ever, Damien and the creatures who have been blessed or cursed with being immortal.  Certainly this is a creditable book in the series developing the ongoing relationships between the characters, while exploring the burgeoning powers of both Ever and her friend Haven.  With the two there is a dichotomy drawn between a healthy view of power and its limits that Ever seems to have, and Haven, who is seduced by the things one can get with it.  The hardest thing to swallow in this book is the ongoing plot line running into the third book with Roman trying to get this magic elixir to save Damien.  Maybe that is why the author decided to eliminate Roman by the end of the novel.

Reader's Annotation - The beauty of being immortal is that you can live forever with the one that you love. The curse is when the one you love, you are never able to touch again.  How is one to live?

About the Author-Alyson Noel was born and raised in Orange County California.  She would then further her views of the world by traveling to Greece after high school and then settling in New York for a time.  She was able to view all sorts of things in the world and explore as she would work as a flight attendant for a time. 

Despite her travels and her love for going all over the world, she found that she still loved home and moved back to California.  But she is still someone who loves to travel and does so constantly.  Her understanding and experience of Orange County led her to set the Immortals series in Orange County California.

Genre- Horror / Fantasy

Curriculum Ties - Compare to the classic Horror Novels of the 19th century.  Would the protagonists in the modern horror novel be the protagonist in the 19th century novel?  How has views of "monsters" changed since the 19th century?  Were they ever really the bad guys? - Literature

Booktalking Ideas - Compare the Immortals series with that of the Twilight series?  How is the relationships between humans and non-humans different?  Discuss whether the monsters envy the lives of the humans?  Why/Why not?

Reading Level/Interest Age - Grade 9 +

Challenge Issues - Demons and Monsters about in this series.

Overcoming Challenges - Focus on the morals being taught in the novel.  Discuss the nature of power and whether it has the tendency to help or corrupt.  Have comparisons with other novels who discuss the use of power and its tendency to corrupt. 

Why Included -  Wanted another non-Twilight horror fantasy novel for my list of items.