Review: Blade Dance by D.L. McDermott (Cold Iron #4)

Blade Dance (Cold Iron #4)
D.L. McDermott
Published: Sept. 21, 2015 2015 (Pocket Star)
Purchase: Amazon
Review source: purchased

Reviewed by: Jannelle

Rating (out of 5): 4 stars

Schoolteacher Ann Phillips runs into trouble at work one day when one of her students, Davin, shows up with incredibly intricate tattoos up and down his arm. After threatening to call child services and having her boss deny her, she sees herself cornered by the Fae who own the better part of Boston—the Fianna—and turns to their crime boss Finn MacUmhaill for help in the delicate matter of confronting the boy’s parents.

Upon further inspection, however, they both realize that the boy’s tattoo was actually part of a spell drawn in by a Druid in an attempt to control the young boy. When the child is kidnapped, Ann, Finn, and some allies work together to discover the Druid’s hiding place, working against the clock at the risk of losing the child and bringing down the wall between the worlds (the only thing keeping the Fae Queen from terrorizing everyone on our side of the wall).

Throughout the drama with Davin, Ann and Finn are falling for each other—hard. As their feelings develop and the story progresses, they learn more about the other as well as about themselves. Finn has been alive for thousands of years and still holds the death of his wife (which happened a thousand years ago) close to his heart and in his mind. Getting to know Ann better and sharing personal things about himself, Finn becomes aware of what he seems to be lacking and begins his journey to fix the mistakes he’s made.

Ann, on the other hand, discovers new exciting information about herself (no spoilers here!) that she further develops in thanks to Finn and his Fae connections. When they are together, the sparks definitely fly and well, there’s really almost nothing sexier than a thousand-year-old, experienced Fae who knows exactly what he wants and isn’t afraid to ask for it.

The only downside to Blade Dance for me was the ending. Again, I hate giving away spoilers so I’ll keep this short: the main conflict resolved itself too easily at the end. I was honestly expecting more of a struggle because all it made me think was, “This is it?” Aside from that misstep, however, the story and world-building were developed steadily and it was extremely easy to follow without having read the previous installments in the series. If you’re not big on the world-building front, give Blade Dance a shot. Since I love a well-developed and detailed world, however, it did feel like I was missing another level to the story but as the setting was in modern-day Boston and the Fae are well-integrated into the society, it still worked.

With a steady-paced plot, slightly complex characters, and an interesting mix of Fae lore in the modern world, I highly recommend Blade Dance to paranormal romance and urban fantasy fans alike. If you haven’t read the other books in the Cold Iron series, no worries because Blade Dance reads great as a stand-alone. And while the first three novels of the series aren’t necessary, I already bought them to binge-read because… I had to.

Sexual content: semi-graphic sex