View source for Dark Heart Forever by Lee Monroe

{{infobox
|title=Dark Heart Forever
|sort=Dark Heart Forever
|author=Lee Monroe
|reviewer=Loralei Haylock
|genre=Teens
|summary=A predictable but light and fluffy read. Has some flaws but is more hampered by poor editing and clumsy manufacturing. Borrow, don't buy.
|rating=2.5
|buy=No
|borrow=Maybe
|paperback=
|hardback=1444901893
|audiobook=
|ebook=
|pages=384
|publisher=Hodder Children's Books
|date=October 2010
|isbn=978-1444901894
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444901893</amazonuk>
|amazonus=<amazonus>1444901893</amazonus>
}}

Jane Jonas has been troubled by dreams lately. Dreams so vivid, it's almost like they're real. In them is a green eyed boy who believes they are each other's destiny. But in the real world, Jane has met Evan. Charming, charismatic, damaged Evan – intoxicating, incredibly attractive and just a little frightening. Jane has never been the sort to have friends, let alone boyfriends. And Evan is perfect, isn't he? 

Torn between the exciting, mystical world of Nissilum, where werewolves and vampires live alongside angels, and the real world that just started getting interesting, Jane has to make a choice between two boys and two worlds. 

I should start this review by saying the book lost half a star through no fault of the author. The reason I've marked this as a 'no' to buy is purely because of sloppy errors made by the publishers when putting the finished book together. There are a number of punctuation errors – not terminal, but annoying – and one page is duplicated. Page 132 is repeated twice, page 134 missed out. You can still get a sense of what you've missed, but I wouldn't want to spend money on a book with such a silly mistake. 

In fact, a lot of this feels rushed. It's like the publisher knew it would be a safe bet and churned it out with all the other supernatural romance teen reads. The story is average – nothing we haven't seen many times before, with a few details I felt were either poorly edited, or deliberately made to Americanise the story. Jane is sixteen, but her parents let her go out in a car with her boyfriend? On roads? In England? While you can drive on your own property in England from any age, you can't legally drive on roads until you are seventeen, and as far as I'm aware, you have to be twenty-one and have held your licence for three years to escort a learner driver. Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but this kind of thing against mentions of studying for GCSEs threw me right out of the story. And that's never a good thing. 

But, quibbling aside, this is an entertaining story. Standard fare for the genre, perhaps, and incredibly predictable, but light and fluffy enough to be worth a borrow, if not a buy. 

My thanks to the publishers for sending a copy. 

Fans of the paranormal genre might enjoy [[Beautiful Dead: Jonas by Eden McGuire]].

{{amazontext|amazon=1444901893}} {{waterstonestext|waterstones=7698889}}

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