YA romance, series, angels, love triangle, super-powers, choices, Kindle

Skye, an orphan adopted by her mom’s best friend, contends with unusual changes happening to her body, being seventeen, and both new boys at school seeming to be interested in her.

I bought this on sale for $2.99 and enjoyed it—I was ready to buy the second in the series but will have to wait until Sept. I might not be willing to pay so much for the second one by then. The story does follow the conventions of current YA romance: a love triangle, paranormal powers, secrets, mysterious strangers, manipulation, and tragic past events. Oh, I forgot—the cliffhanger ending, argh! But—I still found myself drawn in and willing to suspend my disbelief to find out what happened. I’ll probably buy these for the high school, but will wait until all three are out, to prevent being screamed at by angry girls, who hate cliffhanger endings as much as I do. ;)
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Not a bad little paranormal teenage romance lent me me by a co-worker. I was a little worried about the angel thing because I loathed Fallen. Skye is the Mary-Sue in a small Colorado town that is not gritty at all. She's got more than a triangle and a choice between order and chaos ahead of her. A quick and light read. ( )

Jocelyn Davies has written what I lovingly call "book candy". So easy and delicious to devour, that it might just be a sin. Books like this may or may not knock my socks off, but they'll keep me reading on and on until I'm finished. A Beautiful Dark was just that for me. Nothing too heavy, nothing mind blowing, but a sweeping and enjoyable read nonetheless.

Skye is a wonderfully vivid character. The reader is treated to a view of Skye's entire life, including her tough past and her bright present with her friends. She is funny, smart, sweet, and a loyal friend. It was honestly hard not to appreciate Skye, even when I felt a little bit frustrated by her choices (or lack thereof). She's a real person. It just so happens that she has an extraordinary side to her as well.

If that wasn't enough, Joceyln Davies offers up two very different boys for the reader to choose between. One light, one dark. One cocky and charismatic and the other stoic and at peace. Devin and Asher are like night and day, but this works very well for the story. The tension that exists between these two crackles off the pages. Their existence makes Skye's story so much more intriguing.

As I mentioned above, the story line tends to fall into a pattern that ends up a little easy to anticipate at times. A Beautiful Dark is, at it's core, an angel book. It follows a lot of the same rules that books in this category often do. Light and dark. Good and evil. Skye's future is hinged on which she chooses. What kept me immersed in the story though was the unique set of rules that each side had in place. Davies doesn't just allow her boys free reign over their lives, there are rules that must be followed. I won't spoil, but it does make things much more interesting.

The bottom line? This is a great read. I didn't find it to be anything absolutely unique or groundbreaking, but it was a great read nonetheless. I was looking for something a little less serious and a little more fun, and I found that in A Beautiful Dark. I'm not one to compare books, but I will say that if you enjoy paranormal romance this will be a book you are sure to fall in love with. Good luck choosing sides! ( )

Read my overall review of the whole series here! Spoiler Free!

This is one of those books that I finished reading and went, Huh, do I read the next one?

This book wasn't overly impressive to me. I liked how Davies presented the angel clans being rivals in their magical powers and why they have the powers that they do in what is an otherwise obvious division between angels (ie. those in heaven vs those who have fallen). But nothing was overly refreshing or new.

What I didn’t enjoy was Skye or the love triangle. Skye is the reason I created the tag "annoying heroine" so I hope that is enough said. The love triangle is the typical bad boy vs good boy vs BFF (I guess that makes it a square?) and I don't like reading about love triangles.

There is some action, but not really until the end.

Overall: If you can tolerate angst-y, spoiled heroines who can’t make up their mind and like angel stories, check it out.

Check out more spoiler-free book and series reviews on my blog SERIESousBookReviews.com as well as read book series recaps!

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Pretty ho-hum.

Ending sucked. Was surprised but didn't like the way it ended. I am curious but I feel like it was a cheap trick to get me to read the sequel. I am curious though, and I may (grudgingly) read the sequel. We'll see. ( )