I read A Touch of Darkness as part of a boxset, and it was a decent story with some nice twists and turns, but also some issues.
First things first: I really liked the side characters. Zoey and Albert especially weren’t there just as plot supports, but they had their own motivations. Even Rafe and Ariel, who were both a bit assholish and a bit more plot-dependent, had reasons of their own for what they were doing.
While I thought Gabe was a bit of a jerk (I really do think this about most romance MMCs), he did feel real, especially for a newly fallen angel.
Rant time!
Okay, seriously. Cassie was born on February 29th, right? And there’s this whole plot about how keys have to make their choice on their seventh birthday, and Cassie’s facing it now even though she’s turning 28 because, you know, leap year birthday - she’s “only” turning seven now. So she’s super special because of that whole leap year thing.
Fine. That works.
Except her adoptive (I don’t always like to specify because adoptive parents are real parents but this one is plot relevant) parents died on her seventh birthday.
She shouldn’t have had a seventh birthday. It’s physically impossible! If you’re born on February 29 2000 (for the sake of argument), you will have actual birthdays in 2004, 2008, 2012, etc. Not 2007!
Did her parents die on February 28th or March 1st? Did February 29th magically happen in the wrong year?
I got no answers on this one, dude.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.
The utter illogic just made me annoyed, let’s be honest there.
Okay, so going for spoilers now, because I liked one thing so much (seriously, it surprised me, which is awesome) that I have to talk about it in depth.
I really liked Cassie’s final choice. The whole set up was that she had to choose between good and evil and bond with an angel or a demon - and it was pretty damn obvious she was going to choose Gabe, who was a fallen angel. How that would affect things, no one quite knew, but it made sense. Hell, Gabe even volunteered (at a late stage, but still).
But she didn’t.
She chose Zoey, her human friend, as the person to bond with, because she cared more about saving her friend’s life than anything.
And that just…I loved it. It worked perfectly for how Cassie and Zoey had been set up, and it made perfect sense.
While I really liked the book, the giant plothole of doom means I can’t rate it above
Four Stars
You can get the paperback here or the boxset here.
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