A Brush of Darkness
By Allison Pang
Release Date: January 25, 2011
Six months ago, Abby Sinclair was struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Now, she has an enchanted iPod, a miniature unicorn living in her underwear drawer, and a magical marketplace to manage. But despite her growing knowledge of the OtherWorld, Abby isn’t at all prepared for Brystion, the dark, mysterious, and sexy-as- sin incubus searching for his sister, convinced Abby has the key to the succubus’s whereabouts. Abby has enough problems without having this seductive shape-shifter literally invade her dreams to get information. But when her Faery boss and some of her friends vanish, as well, Abby and Brystion must form an uneasy alliance. As she is sucked deeper and deeper into this perilous world of faeries, angels, and daemons, Abby realizes her life is in as much danger as her heart—and there’s no one she can trust to save her.
Review: I haven't read a lot of Urban Fantasy books, so I forgot how entertaining and kick butt they could be! A Brush of Darkness brings in tons of new fantastical creatures, multiple disappearances, and one very irresistible incubus.
Right from the very first page, it's obvious Abby isn't your typical heroine. She's snarky, independent, and sure can handle her own. Everything about her is entertaining, especially how a lot of the book happens in her dreams, and her place in the mysterious world of Faeries and magical creatures create a story that is anything but boring.
Brystion definitely adds an elemental to Abby's quirky story. This brooding, gorgeous incubus tempts Abby in ways she's never been tempted before while showing her crazy things about the world she belongs to that she never knew before. No matter how much he drives Abby crazy, he's always there when things with the daemons or other creatures get way to out of hand (or, you know, when they're trying to kill her, which seems to happen quite a lot).
The only problem with this world, though, is that it's very confusing to get used to. The author jumps right into the whole Abby being a dreamcatcher with doors and roads that go through the other magical worlds. Even by the end, I was still confused by how everything worked and Abby's place in it all because nothing was properly explained. I'm not sure if this is because Abby doesn't even know the answer to how things worked, but it was confusing and made some parts of the story hard to understand.
Despite the complexity and unknown aspects of the story, it was a pretty fun story (especially when it comes to the naughty unicorn that falls into Abby's life). This was a new, enticing take on the paranormal genre and I'm excited to see where the next book in the story will take us!
Everytime I pick up an Urban Fantasy, I find myself wondering why I don't read more of them *lol*
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit bummed to hear that much of the world was confusing, but it sounds really interesting! I've never read much about Dreamcatchers - so that has me curious.
-Jac @ For Love and Books