Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl is book #2 in the Caster Chronicles. Here’s a blurb from the
website: Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena’s family of powerful supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.
Sometimes life-ending.
Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan’s eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there’s no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town’s tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.
My Take
Let me start by saying, I did not read BEAUTIFUL CREATURES. However, I really enjoyed this book! It was easy to fall into Ethan’s love for Lena. You could feel his desperation at reaching her in time. I loved the fact that his mother was looking out for him, despite her passing. Amma was a terrific, feisty character. I even liked Lucille Ball.
I appreciated the detail and the weaving of the storyline. There was a lot of detail included in this book. My family is all from the south and I can appreciate much of the little nuances of the book. Little southern things referred to here and there, and certainly the art of being a gentleman. ;)
I liked the ending and was surprised by the one little twist that I didn’t see coming. No spoilers here. I don’t know that I appreciated the flat out set up for the next book though. It’s probably just the slight headache I have coming on right now. No worries. In the end, the main characters were dealt with fairly well, but some others were left unexplained to a certain degree. I know this too is probably set up for the next book, but it leaves me feeling a little ambivalent.
In the end, I enjoyed the story and the characters quite well. The setting was wonderful and made the reader feel absorbed into it. So to use a southern term, I am going to give this book 3 big sugars!
Note: This book is one I reviewed as part of the Traveling ARC tours.
