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A BEAUTIFUL DARK by Jocelyn Davies

A BEAUTIFUL DARK

From the Beautiful Dark series, volume 1

by Jocelyn Davies

Pub Date: Sept. 27th, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-199065-6
Publisher: HarperTeen

Here’s a paranormal romance that doesn’t follow all the conventions of the genre but relies at least in part on imagination to feed the needs of readers seeking supernatural fun.

In this novel, the heroine has no difficulty with vampires, werewolves, mermen or ghosts. Instead, Skye appears to live within reality in the normal world, until strange things start happening to her on her 17th birthday. Of course, two handsome new boys have coincidentally appeared, both with the ability to make girls weak in the knees at a glance, but it’s Skye herself who seems to have some kind of supernatural ability. Her eyes turn from gray to shiny silver, and machinery explodes around her. Eventually readers learn that the boys—golden Devin and dark Asher—are angels, one a “guardian” and the other a rebel. Skye can’t avoid her strong attraction to Asher, but Devin pulls at her heart as well. Little does she know that she’s a very special girl, in great danger, with a life-changing choice to make. Davies layers on the suspense, delving ever further into the supernatural but keeping some realism in the story until the final confrontation (which may or may not set up a sequel). While angels are almost as thick on the ground these days as vampires, Devin and Asher achieve a modicum of originality, and Skye has enough spunk to please her audience.

A cut above the genre average.

(Paranormal romance. 12 & up)