Scan barcode
A review by renuked
A Darkness Strange and Lovely by Susan Dennard
5.0
Uh huh. Oh yeah. Mm hmm. Once more? AWESOME. Yes I thoroughly enjoyed that. Let's start with the cover and title. Perfect. I mean we can already see it's going to be creepy and lush. A Darkness Strange and Lovely. Gorgeous historical dresses. Technological steampunk elements. Romance thrown in just the right amount. And necromancy, as in, the art of raising the dead and communing with spirits. It had literally everything.
The book picks up after the first one leaves off. Eleanor is struggling financially and mentally, and her mother has been placed in a lunatic asylum. She is paranoid and afraid and is still reeling after losing of her hand, seeing her brother turn evil, and receiving a broken heart. So she flees to the only place she feels safe - Paris to meet the Spirit-Hunters. On the way to Paris, she runs into a mysterious friend of her brother's, Oliver, who also turns out to be a demon bound to her brother. Oliver is also not entirely trust-worthy, but hey, you can't not love Oliver and his mysterious past with her brother. *hint, hint*
But Eleanor is not really the nice girl we knew in the previous book, she has definitely changed. Not really for the better, but definitely for the more interesting. Oliver begins to teach her necromancy under stressful circumstances, and next thing we know, Eleanor has crossed over. Yes, she begins to learn necromancy, which automatically makes her awesome, but it also causes her character to make a helluva lot of awful choices. Eleanor turns nasty is the nicest way to put this. She stomps on people continuously and starts chasing power. I started to dislike her as a person (but not as a character). I love morally ambiguous characters.
And the rest was too good not to enjoy. I mean, we've still got Marcus on the loose and now we've got another demon running amok in Paris. This one is not just killing innocents, but horrendously sacrificing people. The hungry Dead (les Morts) are still ever present, and now Eleanor has got to figure out what's going on, learn necromancy, solve her own problems, and keep the trust of the Spirit-Hunters. Plus Daniel returns as an elegant gentleman surrounded by a harem of women. That little twist was really great and the romance never overshadowed the book. It only enhanced it and added some wonderful tension.
The horror and paranormal elements are excellent, the characters are all very fascinating even if I couldn't like any of them, but I think the suspense was the best part. The reader is able to figure out the identity of the demon very quickly, so seeing the Spirit-Hunters and Eleanor struggle with the facts was beyond frustrating. The dramatic irony was absolute murder, and I felt like shaking the characters, especially Eleanor, repeatedly. Overall, the book is really well balanced, and I just really love the setting and the plot. The creepiness of the book is enough to make it a favorite for me.
The book picks up after the first one leaves off. Eleanor is struggling financially and mentally, and her mother has been placed in a lunatic asylum. She is paranoid and afraid and is still reeling after losing of her hand, seeing her brother turn evil, and receiving a broken heart. So she flees to the only place she feels safe - Paris to meet the Spirit-Hunters. On the way to Paris, she runs into a mysterious friend of her brother's, Oliver, who also turns out to be a demon bound to her brother. Oliver is also not entirely trust-worthy, but hey, you can't not love Oliver and his mysterious past with her brother. *hint, hint*
But Eleanor is not really the nice girl we knew in the previous book, she has definitely changed. Not really for the better, but definitely for the more interesting. Oliver begins to teach her necromancy under stressful circumstances, and next thing we know, Eleanor has crossed over. Yes, she begins to learn necromancy, which automatically makes her awesome, but it also causes her character to make a helluva lot of awful choices. Eleanor turns nasty is the nicest way to put this. She stomps on people continuously and starts chasing power. I started to dislike her as a person (but not as a character). I love morally ambiguous characters.
And the rest was too good not to enjoy. I mean, we've still got Marcus on the loose and now we've got another demon running amok in Paris. This one is not just killing innocents, but horrendously sacrificing people. The hungry Dead (les Morts) are still ever present, and now Eleanor has got to figure out what's going on, learn necromancy, solve her own problems, and keep the trust of the Spirit-Hunters. Plus Daniel returns as an elegant gentleman surrounded by a harem of women. That little twist was really great and the romance never overshadowed the book. It only enhanced it and added some wonderful tension.
The horror and paranormal elements are excellent, the characters are all very fascinating even if I couldn't like any of them, but I think the suspense was the best part. The reader is able to figure out the identity of the demon very quickly, so seeing the Spirit-Hunters and Eleanor struggle with the facts was beyond frustrating. The dramatic irony was absolute murder, and I felt like shaking the characters, especially Eleanor, repeatedly. Overall, the book is really well balanced, and I just really love the setting and the plot. The creepiness of the book is enough to make it a favorite for me.