563 pages
Little Brown and Company
Authors Kamis Garcia & Margaret Stohl
There were no surprises in Gaitlin County.
At east, that's what I thought.
Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end there was grave.
Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gaitlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even withing the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.
Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gaitlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.
In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything
This book is like no other. The detail, the characters; their roots and history, the presence of the South through every page, the connection between Ethan and Lena, and even the emotion through every event.
Ethan and Lena were both beautiful. Amma was another favortie of mine with her voodoo and superstitions, even Macon Ravenwood grew on me in the end and I couldn't help but feel bad for his ending.
The contribution of the the two writers have really complimented each other well. Everything about this book- every detail, every character, every secret- it's all so real and so great.
For starters the characters were so well developed, I felt as if I knew them personally, their history was so alive through story- each one of them, tying them to the south, to Gaitlin county in such a deeper past than the DAR (Daughters of the American Revoultion) and the families of the town had even been aware of. For such a small ordinary town, that nothing ever happened, and nothing ever changed.. there was soo much to be uncovered. Even with the ending of this book I know the sequel 'Beautiful Darkness' has some greatness to offer as well.
Every turn the story took I thought I knew for sure what was going to happen next but was totally thrown off guard with why Lena's Uncle Macon was hiding so much from her, I truly started to believe he was trying to harm Lena vs. protecting her as he claims but is caught lying to her left and right, and the true reason behind Mrs.Lincoln's strange desire to seperate Ethan and Lena.. this was not divulged until the very ending..( I do not want to give it away! )
The tie between Ethan and Lena was so romantic- the history of their bloodlines and the curse of Lena's family. Their journey to discover how to help Lena form turning Dark on her sixteenth birthday was like a roller-coaster ride that left every turn unpredictable and every fall intense.
Before I started reading I was skeptical on the title- I was sure it was bound to be another story that was all too familiar. I was wrong, very wrong.
There was nothing familiar about this story- it was dark, romantic, and tragic- while uplifting and encouraging. I hate to try to explain the details of the events that happened in a book, especially when they were so well put together in one like this, it leaves you with a yearning for more and heavy with emotion.
In this review I just want to say I highly highly reccomend this book.
