April's not had the best time of it lately. First her family up and moved her clear across the country and sent her to an exclusive college full of the smartest (and apparently most beautiful) kids in the country. Then, while April was struggling to fit in, she discovered Ravenwood school's terrible secret - it's run by vampires.
| Darkness Falls by Mia James | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Loralei Haylock
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| Summary: The second instalment of the Ravenwood Mysteries has a few flaws but manages to remain a very good book, keeping up the interesting characters, the haunting locations and killer conspiracy of By Midnight. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 384 | Date: September 2011 |
| Publisher: Indigo | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1780620411 | |
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But that's not all - April is a Fury, highly poisonous to vampires and their sworn enemy. Which wouldn't be so bad, only she poisoned her vampire boyfriend, Gabriel, and now he's dying. Having just lost her father, April doesn't think she can survive losing someone else, so she and best friend Caro vow to find a cure. But doing so without alerting the vampires at Ravenwood that April is the Fury won't be easy, not helped by the fact Gabriel doesn't seem too eager to take the cure anyway...
And as if that wasn't enough drama for one seventeen year old girl, April also needs to get to the bottom of the Ravenwood conspiracy, and to get revenge for her father who died trying to uncover the truth.
I enjoyed By Midnight by Mia James so much, I half couldn't wait to devour this second instalment. I was also half worried, as I always am when it comes to sequels - will it live up to the promise of the original?
Darkness Falls is a good book, no doubt, but is it as good as By Midnight? Not really.
While the characters remained interesting, the landscape haunting, the conspiracy involving, there were a few things that irritated me about Darkness Falls. Not enough to stop me reading the next book, or to drop it out of the four star category, but still irritating.
First and foremost, the on-off-onagain relationship between Gabriel and April started to grate after a while. Maybe I'm just getting Paranormal Romance burnout, but I'm so tired of this 'What does he really see in me? He was speaking to another girl therefore he must be cheating!' attitude seen in so many books. Okay, April did deal with it in an endearing way (no jumping off cliffs here) but after the third or fourth change of heart, I was starting to get a little bored.
Then there was a police character who acted in a completely dubious way - creating a moment that snapped me right out of the narrative to thing 'Would he really get away with doing that?' I think his actions were meant to imply he was involved in the conspiracy somehow, but it just didn't ring true for me, in a series that has been so realistic, despite subject matter, in the past.
There also seemed to be a lot going on - too much at times. The final act left me feeling a bit bewildered. I didn't really see where it came from. A little longer spent raising suspicions about the characters involved would have been better. Unless I missed something...
That said, it bears repeating that Darkness Falls was still a good book. A very good book. What I enjoyed far outweighed the things I didn't, and I look forwards to seeing where the Ravenwood conspiracy takes April next.
My thanks to the publishers for sending a copy.
For another great supernatural read try Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Darkness Falls by Mia James at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Darkness Falls by Mia James at Amazon.com.
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