Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl + Double Giveaway (BC & BD)

Title: Beautiful Darkness

Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Sthol

Series: #2
Pages: 504
Publisher: Little, Brown
Reading Level: Young Adult

Publish Date: October 12, 2010.

Rating: .9

Cover Rating:

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.

Taschima's POV:

Beautiful Darkness is long, exhilarating, and magical.

We start off on a funeral, everybody is crushed, specially Lena. She doesn't think she can get over this, she doesn't think she should. She blames herself for a crime committed by another, and Ethan doesn't understand why. Instead of their relationship being as strong as ever is slowly slipping away into nothingness, and Ethan feels like anything he does to stop this is only making it worse. Whats a guy to do?

But if you put the relationship on the back burner for a while there is so much more going on; green and gold mixing together, ghosts from the past back to haunt with a vengeance, a whole town that seems unimpressive full of secrets beyond your wildest dreams. And in the distance, if you hear close enough, you can catch the lyrics to the song that condemns all, Seventeen Moons.

Beautiful Creatures is still my favorite, but Beautiful Darkness managed to pass the test of the "book between books", which in most cases suffers of being a drag, but in this case it ended up being an entertaining wild ride.

A lot of questions are answered, but those are replaced by new ones! Never ending loop! I got to say, as much as I liked the main love story, I was fascinated by the background love story. In the first book it was those two people from the Civil War, in this one is... Agh! Can't tell you, but trust me it was enough to catch me off guard.

Most of the twists and turns I expected, but not all of them. And there are new characters!! Liv for example, who is in my opinion much more awesome than Lena (don't shoot the messenger). She is a geeky, brilliant English girl. There is also a new bad boy in town, one that I am SURE I would have loved if only he would have been painted in a different light. You'll see.

The romance of the book was very filled with tension. All the romances in the book were. It was nice to see how far people would go for people even if people were being such jerks.

At the end of the day it was a great book, an honorable sequel to BC. The ending was very WTFish, but in a good way, and now I don't want to wait for the third installment. I want it all, and I want it now.

PS; Team Liv, screw Lena ;)

I am feeling generous, and since I love this series so much I decided that I will host a giveaway for a copy of Beautiful Creatures & Beautiful Darkness in honor of BD's Birthday. The Rules are:

• Be A Bloody Follower
• Post a comment on the review of either Beautiful Darkness or Beautiful Creatures.
• Leave your Email so I can contact you!

Giveaway ends on October 12 at 11:59 p.m.