The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

True Love's First Kill
Daniel looked up at me. His dark eyes searched my face. There was something different from those too-familiar eyes. Maybe it was the way the orange light from the streetlamp illuminated his pupils. Maybe it was the way he stared without blinking. His eyes made him look...hungry.

This book is amazing! I never knew what was coming and the paranormal element in this book. The blurb and cover gave no clue whatsoever about it and I loved this aspect.

The main character Grace is a 17 year old daughter of a pastor-father. She discovers a secret when Daniel, her childhood friend returns to her town. She tries to find answers of what happened between her brother Jude and Daniel many years ago and about the strange Markham monster happenings.

What I found unique about this book is the addition of God and a religious family. It was interesting to read how they dealt with things. I liked the character of Grace, she was a good girl but not to the point of being boring. The twist at the ending makes her important, so it isn't all the boys who get to be the 'heroes'/'cursed'.

The pacing was great. Despite being childhood friends, I like how Daniel and Grace became acquainted once again. There were so many sweet and heart pounding moments! There was a large amount of characters which was great but it was hard to get to know all of them. Don reminded me a lot of Lenny from Of Mice and Men!

I was kind of disappointed that Grace did not really communicate with her brother Jude (he must have felt alone and helpless and understandably angry at her at being with the person who harmed him). She spent a lot of time finding her answers from Daniel which probably added fuel to the fire in Jude losing control. However, the ending poses an opportunity for Grace redeeming herself and helping her brother in the sequel, so I will be satisfied!

In my opinion, the last 80 or so pages were very confusing. I had to keep reading back and replaying the events in my mind just to understand how events all fit together in a puzzle. There was so many layers being added on the already high cake and some plotholes were surfacing. The storyline twisted and turned with unexpectedness and surprise, I was constantly putting down the book to ask myself 'why did that happen? why didn't _____?' and thinking it through to try to find a logical explanation for what was going on. (I know there aren't always logical explanations for occurings but probably this happened because I loved the book so much that I wanted to get the gist of everything!!)

The Dark Divine is definitely a gripping debut novel and I seriously cannot wait for a sequel!

★★★★★