A Brush of Darkness (Abby Sinclair #1)
by Allison Pang
Mass Market Paperback, 343 pages
Published January 25th 2011 by Pocket (first published January 21st 2011)
ISBN 1439198322
Courtesy of author & Bewitching Book Tours
The man of her dreams might be the cause of her nightmares.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.
Jolene’s Thoughts:
Abby Sinclair works in a smelly old bookstore, but that's as much normalcy as she gets. The Pit, as it's called, is a front for the Marketplace that caters to the Other-Folk. The Protectorate of this town, who is also Abby's boss and who she is TouchStoned to, has left on an errand 4 months ago and Abby is not sure when she will be back. Abby is new to this world and is feeling her way around and honestly has no idea what she is doing half the time. Almost a year since the accident that changed her life, Abby is still trying to pick up the pieces of her life and get past the accident that took her mom and left her with seizures and vivid nightmares that drown her. Abby and Moira's paths meet and Moira introduces her to a new world as her TouchStone. With Moira gone, Abby is left to run things on her own. In walks Brystion, dark and seductive, looking for Moira's help with the disappearance of his sister. Abby, nervous and cautious of Other-Folk, gives wide berth to daemons in fear they will suck out her soul. Though Brystion is a Daemon, she can't deny her need for him and after one touch, she finds herself now TouchStoned to this dark stranger. As Abby decides to help him, she is unprepared for the dangers and obstacles that lay ahead, but as she opens her dreams to Brystion, she finds he may be worth letting into her heart.
I absolutely loved this book and devoured it as far as I could. I was skeptical when I first stared it and really struggled with the first chapter. I had a lot of question marks hanging over my head and felt like I should of had some sort of glossary or introduction to this world I was being brought into. There was a lot going on as the story took off. A lot of introductions, characters, terms, supernatural creatures and events that were taking place and everything was moving at a fast pace. My mind was constantly moving and I felt I was struggling to keep up with all the information as I tried to sort through everything. Which necessarily isn't a bad thing, Allison Pang definitely made my brain work a little harder than usual :) After the first chapter, things fell into place and everything started to click and the story really took off.
Abby is such a unique character with a lot of spunk. She makes many mistakes, but can easily brush them off and power through. Abby had me laughing, cheering, smiling and tearing up. There is nothing I wanted more than to see her come out on top. I loved seeing her spar with Brystion, even though there were times when I cringed at something that flew out of her mouth, or I laughed at her calling someone out. He attitude and lack of a filter was such a part of her character and there were a couple of times she could really cut deep with her words, especially towards Brystion and that had me groaning for her lack of sensitivity. Regardless, Abby was great in all her streaked hair glory, she really brought the story to life and Phineas, the mini unicorn she TouchStoned to was an added bonus. Where else could you find a perverted mini unicorn who loved biting behinds and had a perverse taste to sleeping in lingerie.
Of course, I have to talk more about Brystion *sigh* Brystion, the tortured Daemon. I hated him, I loved him, I hated him, I loved him again. I was intrigued with him the minute he stepped onto the page. I couldn't get a handle on what exactly he wanted and as soon as I thought I had him figured out, he threw me through a loop. I loved learning about the Daemons and seeing what Brystion's abilities were. The connection with Abby was intense, in the dreaming and the real world. I would love nothing more if he could come feed off my dreams. Even in that moment where I doubted him and I was mad at what had happened, I wanted him with Abby and I wanted him to prove me wrong. That he was the Daemon I knew he could be. OK, that sounded corny, but even in his true Daemon form, he was strong, a little insecure but sexy as hell.
Overall, I loved this story and all the twists and turns it took me on. It was fast paced filled with action, mystery, suspense, lots of paranormal elements, laughs, some romance and hot daemon dream sex. I will point out that I had a PDF copy of this book that I converted for my kindle, I'm not sure what happened in the conversion but I did have a problem with several words that were strung together through out the book, no capitalization and hardly any paragraphing. It was frustrating and would occasionally throw me out of the story as it was distracting. I did some re-reads of sentences and paragraphs just to get a handle on what I was seeing. Not sure if anyone else did a conversion and came across the same problem or my kindle is just being a pain. Never-less, I loved it so much I plan on getting a paperback copy and doing a re-read. I cannot wait to jump into book two and feel like Abby has given me some inspiration to run out and buy some Hello Kitty undies for myself
Rating: 5 Wine Glasses
This sounds like a great series.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your review!
Anytime I see this cover I think, I want her skirt!
ReplyDeleteWell written review. I havn't picked up this series because it seemed like a lot for the world building and I didn't think I would get into it. But after reading your review maybe I should give it a go.
I hope you check it out! I steered clear from it for a bit, just thinking there was too much going on. I had that problem with the first chapter but then it just took off and I am now in love with this series
ReplyDelete