Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Series: Caster Chronicles
I loved Beautiful Creatures, the first book in the Caster Chronicles, so I've been dying to read this since way before it was released. Sometimes in cases like that, the sequel can't possibly live up to your expectations, but I think Beautiful Darkness did.
I will confess that I had a hard time getting into it at first - it started off a little slowly. But once it got going, it really got going. After getting through about fifty pages throughout the week in my few free minutes at school, I sat down this morning to read a bit more over breakfast. I decided that I would read while I ate, then go work on college essays and NaNoWriMo. Around 3 pm, with only a brief interruption to get lunch, I finished the novel and hadn't written a word. I simply could not put it down.
Ethan is still crazy in love with Lena, but Lena is struggling with a dark secret and even darker emotions that are pulling her away from Ethan. Suddenly, she's hanging out with her evil cousin Ridley and a mysterious new Incubus, leaving Ethan feeling pushed aside and desperate to save her before she turns Dark. Her Seventeenth Moon is coming up, and Lena will have to be Claimed soon. And Liv, Marian's new assistant at the library, is only convincing Lena that Ethan has moved on. But, of course, in Gatlin, SC, nothing is what it appears to be.
I loved so many things about this book. The characters - Link and Liv especially, and Ethan's great-great-aunts, and Ridley, and of course Ethan most of all - just came to life in my mind. I wish we had gotten to see more of Lena, although I'm confident that she'll be more important in book three. I would read pages and pages of just small talk between these characters, because I love them that much.
And the plot. Oh my goodness. I really want book three NOW, because I just have to know what happens next. Beautiful Darkness keeps working at solving the mysteries introduced in book one, answering a few questions and raising plenty more, and there's always something new happening. I feel like that description is really cheesy and doesn't do the book justice at all, but I'm not sure (1) how much I can say without accidentally spoiling something and (2) how else to say it. It just takes hold of you and refuses to let go until you've read every last word, and then leaves you hungry for more of it.
Long story short: I adored this book, every bit as much as the first one if not more, and I can't wait for book three! Absolutely read the Caster Chronicles.
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