Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales
Quick & Dirty: Riley is lost without Eli. Then she discovers that he may not be dead. Nothing will stop her from finding the man she loves…
Opening Sentence: It’s cold here.
The Review:
Let me start off by saying I have not read the previous books in this series. The first book has been on my to-read list for a long time, but I just haven’t gotten around to reading it. That being said, I had no problems following what was going on in this fifth and final installment of the Dark Ink Chronicles. While I would probably say my true rating would be closer to 3.5 stars, I have to round it up to 4 based purely on the fact that I had such a hard time putting this book down once I started it.
Riley Poe is still reeling from the events of the previous book, struggling with the loss of her fiancé Eli and her friend Victorian. Hope stirs in her heart when she finds out they may not be truly dead, but trapped in a purgatory-like dimension. Riley takes off on her own, determined to rescue them. She believes she’s successful, until she finds out that, while Victorian is back, Eli is nowhere to be found. As she and her friends try to figure out what’s going on, they also have to deal with a string of vampire killings in Inverness. Will they be able to stop the killings? Will Riley ever find the man she loves?
I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of Riley. Maybe my opinion would be different if I’d read the previous books, but based on this book, she seems to be the type of person who does what she wants, no matter the consequences. Numerous times, her friends advise her against a certain course of action. She agrees to their faces, but as soon as their backs are turned, she goes ahead and does what she wants. When things inevitably go awry, she really doesn’t appear to regret what she did. This became incredibly frustrating to me. Something else that annoyed me is the fact that every male in Riley’s life is in love with her. This is a particular pet peeve of mine in books. It just doesn’t seem believable to me that every male character would fall in love with the heroine.
On the plus side, I loved the side characters, my favorite being Noah. I would love to see a story from his perspective. The glimpse we get of his past in this book made me very intrigued to know more about him. His personality alone would make him a great hero in a novel.
All in all, while Riley as a character annoyed me, I can find no complaints about the actual plot of the book. It was fast-paced and kept me on my toes the entire time. I was constantly eager to discover what would happen next. In the end, that’s really all that matters. As a newcomer to the series, it intrigued me enough to want to go back and read the series from the beginning. I believe fans of the series will not be disappointed by this final installment.
Notable Scene:
All at once, the last tree falls. The mist hovers and swirls over the downed forest, obscuring the browns and greens with a white blanket. In the next second, it begins to recede, and in its wake, darkness. It’s almost as if my vision is blurred, and I can’t make out figures, forms, or shapes. I even scrub my eyes with my free fist. Then I blink, and my vision sharpens. I’m standing at the end of a street. Dark, shadowy, desolate. No cars. No trash cans. No storefronts. Just a street. At the far end, a derelict church. Ruined stone buildings flank me, along with cracked and torn-up sidewalks. Windows are glassless, and rotted two-by-fours crisscross the gaps. The air around me is dead still, yet some of the windows have tattered drapes that flap in a breeze that doesn’t exist. My eyes search every angle, every sharp edge, every shadow. I glance down, and at my feet, a dead raven. Half of it’s smashed to the broken pavement, its wings unnaturally bent backward. The eyes have been burned out. Nothing but a singed hole looks up at me. I step over the dead raven, and it begins to flap its broken wings. Billy Squier’s “The Stroke” starts booming from one of the broken windows above me. My eyes scan the gaping holes, and I see nothing. I take a long breath and move forward. I can’t let this world get to me. Besides, I love Billy Squier. What the hell?
No sooner do I move five feet than my heart seizes. I feel it thump, heavy, like a chunk of lead, and my first and immediate thought is Eli. My eyes latch on to the church at the end of the street. He’s in there. I know it. I feel it.
FTC Advisory: Signet/Penguin provided me with a copy of Darklove. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.