All Things Halloween Review - A Darkness Strange and Lovely

A Darkness Strange and Lovely (Something Strange and Deadly, # 2)

By: Susan Dennard

Published: July 23rd 2013 by HarperTeen

406 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Zombies, Paranormal

Source: Won in a giveaway

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Goodreads description--Darkness has come to the City of Light...

With her brother dead and her mother on the verge of insanity, Eleanor Fitt is utterly alone. Even the Spirit-Hunters—Joseph, Jie, and the handsome Daniel—have fled to Paris. So when Eleanor begins to hear the vicious barking of hounds and see images of haunting yellow eyes, she fears the worst—that the Dead, and the necromancer Marcus, are coming for her.

To escape and search out the Spirit-Hunters, Eleanor boards a steamer bound for France. There she meets Oliver, a young man who claims to have known her brother. Though friendly, Oliver entices Eleanor with necromancy and black magic, yet as long as she can resist his powerful temptation, she'll be fine. But when she arrives in Paris, she finds that the Dead have taken over the city...and there's a whole new evil lurking. With the body count rising, Eleanor is forced to make a deadly decision that will go against everything the Spirit-Hunters stand for.

In Paris, there's a price for this darkness strange and lovely...and it may have Eleanor paying with her life.

In this spellbinding sequel to Something Strange and Deadly, Susan Dennard delivers a thrilling mix of intrigue, romance, and revenge, all set against the wonderfully enchanting backdrop of nineteenth-century Paris.

I started off A Darkness Strange and Lovely feeling really bad for Eleanor. Her only friends have moved to Paris, France. Her brother is dead and his body is possessed by a dead necromancer. Her friend Clarence died at her brother’s hands. She is alienated from all of her old friends from prior to meeting the Spirit Hunters. And her mother has pretty much lost all the marbles she had left and gone insane. Eleanor is broke and having to sell off her family’s possessions one at a time—furniture, dresses, everything. Daniel told her before leaving for Paris that he wasn’t in love with her. Oh and she had her hand amputated. Needless to say, things just aren’t going well for her at all.

When Marcus (the dead necromancer possessing her brother’s body) threatens Eleanor again, she knows that she can’t take him on alone. She needs the help of the Spirit Hunters and so she takes what little money she has left and buys herself a ticket on a ship to France. During the process, we learn that Eleanor is being pursued by the guardians that keep watch over the veil between the Spirit realm and the physical realm. In an act of desperation Eleanor ends up binding herself to being of dark magic—Oliver. The description kind of led me to believe that Eleanor might start to develop feelings for Oliver which would put us into that lovely relationship shape that everyone complains about (love triangle). But that’s not really the case so no worries if that’s one of the things holding you back from starting this book. Oliver and Eleanor do develop a bond and a friendship of sorts, but it isn’t romantic.

Because Oliver is a being of dark magic, Eleanor keeps getting pulled into her own bits of necromancy. She begins to taste of the darkness that is both strange and lovely and thus begins down a dangerous slope that could get out of control at any moment. She feels the draw to use more and more magic despite the consequences. Eventually she arrives in Paris, but she decides to keep her relationship with Oliver and her dabbles with black magic a secret from the Spirit Hunters because she knows they would not approve. But things aren’t always in black and white.

Of course, the Spirit Hunters HAVE to find out that Eleanor has been keeping secrets and lying to them. And she begins to alienate the only friends she has left. Still, I felt bad for Eleanor. She’s been through so much, and her friends don’t take much time to listen to her. But yet, I saw her making stupid decision after stupid decision.

The main villain of this book wasn’t much of a secret. As a matter of fact, almost everything that happened felt obvious to me which was a bit of a drag. I like being able to predict what’s going to happen…sometimes. But not all the time. And I LOVE when a book can surprise me. By the time I ended A Darkness Strange and Lovely I felt kind of “meh” over the whole thing. However, given a day of separation from it I found myself craving to go ahead and pick up Strange and Ever After so I could see how it would all end. As frustrated as I was with Eleanor’s choices and the predictability, something was pulling me back to this series.

I have to say that I’m getting a little bored with the typical trilogy arc and I sometimes feel like I should just skip book 2 altogether. Book 1 is the build up, and Something Strange and Deadly was definitely better to me than A Darkness Strange and Lovely. Book 2 is the lull—the filler—the bridge from book 1 to book 3. And well book 3 is where the overall arc gets the ultimate climax and resolution. So yeah…A Darkness Strange and Lovely definitely fell into this pattern. But here’s to hoping for that big climax and resolution in book 3, Strange and Ever After.

I had some frustrations with A Darkness Strange and Lovely, but I also find myself getting drawn back into the series since finishing this book. I can’t say I loved it, but I liked it enough to be glad that I read it. A Darkness Strange and Lovely gets 3.5 Stars from me. Have you read A Darkness Strange and Lovely? What did you think? Let me know!

This review is part of my All Things Halloween event--a month of paranormal, supernatural, mystery/thriller, etc reviews and books.

Something Strange and Deadly - Review

Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly, # 1)

By: Susan Dennard

Published: July 24th 2012 by HarperTeen

388 pages

Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Zombies, Paranormal

Source: Personal Kindle Library

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Goodreads description--The year is 1876, and there’s something strange and deadly loose in Philadelphia…

Eleanor Fitt has a lot to worry about. Her brother has gone missing, her family has fallen on hard times, and her mother is determined to marry her off to any rich young man who walks by. But this is nothing compared to what she’s just read in the newspaper—

The Dead are rising in Philadelphia.

And then, in a frightening attack, a zombie delivers a letter to Eleanor…from her brother.

Whoever is controlling the Dead army has taken her brother as well. If Eleanor is going to find him, she’ll have to venture into the lab of the notorious Spirit-Hunters, who protect the city from supernatural forces. But as Eleanor spends more time with the Spirit-Hunters, including their maddeningly stubborn yet handsome inventor, Daniel, the situation becomes dire. And now, not only is her reputation on the line, but her very life may hang in the balance.

My first reaction to Something Strange and Deadly was a result of the girl on the cover with the big poofy dress. Apparently bloggers tend to dislike covers with the girl in a fancy dress on them. I’m not really one of them, but I wasn’t sure what would be different about Something Strange and Deadly from other girl-with-poofy-dress-covered books that I’ve read. What I didn’t know was that Something Strange and Deadly has ZOMBIES in it. And it is historical fiction, so the poofy dress is actually appropriate for this cover. But I was still misled. Although Something Strange and Deadly has zombies in it, this is NOT a zombie book. At all.

Something Strange and Deadly had a bit of a slow start for me. Even though there’s a “zombie attack” fairly early on in the book. These zombies have the capability to be the scary zombies that seek out human flesh to satisfy their hunger, but for the most part all of the zombies within Something Strange and Deadly are controlled by a necromancer who has used black magic to raise the dead and bend them to his will and become his army. BORING.

Something Strange and Deadly is one of those books where we’ve got the ordinary leading female character that has a mission that is bigger than herself. Eleanor’s mission is to find and save her brother from the hands of the evil necromancer. When her brother was in school, he was tormented by bullies. Eleanor always kind of felt like it was her responsibility to take care of him. And then Elijah went off to study ancient texts and such, traveling the world. And now he’s unable to come back home due to the necromancer. Eleanor is convinced that she needs to save him and so she sets off to hunt down the Spirit-Hunters that fight against the walking Dead and various other spirits.

The Spirit-Hunters comprise of Joseph, the face of the Spirit-Hunters, Jie, a Chinese immigrant who dresses like a boy, and Daniel, who appears to be the bull-headed inventor that automatically assumes that Eleanor is a pompous, entitled debutante. Joseph, Jie, and Daniel make a good team, but Eleanor is determined to force herself upon them in hopes of finding and releasing her brother. What she finds is a group of friends who don’t care that her family is poor. There’s chemistry between Eleanor and Daniel, but Eleanor really needs to marry for money and Daniel’s background isn’t all blue-skies and rainbows.

The conflict was a bit obvious. Yet I had a few questions about specific characters, namely Clarence, that I just couldn’t nail down for sure as being a good guy or a bad guy. Ironically enough, there is a gray area, and almost all of the characters fall somewhere in between.

Quotes:

-Why is it that no matter how realistic or rehearsed a lie is, it always rings false in the teller’s ears?

-“You have the curiosity of a cat and the common sense of a goldfish.”

-Wounds will heal, grief will pass, but a reputation can never be recovered.

-He slung off his cap and pressed it to his chest. Then, with the casual grace that marked all of his movements, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. He was declaring fealty to his empress.

I will say that one frustration I had with Something Strange and Deadly was Eleanor’s desire to rid herself of her fancy dresses. She’s described as being soft, curvy, not necessarily fat, but not skinny. And so, sure, being laced up into a corset isn’t pleasant I imagine. And trying to run and fight off zombies in a petticoat and fluffy dress isn’t easy when one can throw on a pair of trousers, but I found myself wondering why even set the book in this time period if Eleanor is going to fight these customs? The very idea of fighting the Dead in this kind of outfit is one of the very things that drew me into the series. It just kind of felt like the wrong direction to go to me. Maybe the rest of the series will make me feel differently.

At this point, I enjoyed Something Strange and Deadly, but it wasn’t at all what I expected it to be—but not in the good kind of way. The pacing was a bit slow, I really only connected with Eleanor (and still had some frustrations with her) and Daniel (who we didn’t get to spend nearly as much time with as I wanted), and I found myself confused as to why this story might have been marketed as historical zombie fiction, when all of the wonderful elements that would comprise weren’t what I imagined them to be. I will proceed with the story as I already have the other two in my possession. Thankfully, a fellow blogger, Rachel @ Paper Cuts, has given me hope that the remaining two books might be better. Something Strange and Deadly gets 3.5 Stars from me. Have you read Something Strange and Deadly? What did you think? Let me know!