Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Blog Tour: The Darkness by Crystal Connor


About The Darkness
The Darkness has been selected as a two time Award-Winning Finalist in the 2011 International Book Awards in the fiction categories of Cross Genre Fiction and Multicultural Fiction!

Artemisia, a scientist who also practices alchemy, is wealthy beyond imagination. She is one of the founding members of the Skyward Group, a privately funded, secret, research facility conducting experiments that erase what tradition has established as the boundaries separating the realm of man from the realm of God. Artemisia has everything she wants – money, fame, knowledge and power – except for a child. Inanna is a powerful and dangerous witch, also wealthy beyond imagination. Her powers are greater and more deadly than any in the long tradition before her. Inanna has everything she wants – money, knowledge and God-like power – except for a child. The Child has nothing. At three months of age, he knows only what he has experienced through the bars of his locked cage. He has nothing. He doesn’t have a mommy. He doesn’t have a daddy. He doesn’t have a name. The scientists who created him do not handle him, because they know The Child is dangerous.

In The Darkness, Two women clash in a vicious battle that has been fought since the days of King Solomon – the fight over a child. One woman unleashes the nightmarish arsenal of modern science while the other dispatches the weaponries of witchcraft. And as The Child grows up, his love for one and resentment for the other will change the fate of both these women, forever.


My Review:
This is a unique book. The subject matter is very different from what we are used to reading, even in the paranormal genre.

The storyline is complex, with many different lives intertwining. It moves back and forth between the past and the present, which gives it a nice flow. What I enjoyed most about it, though, was the inclusion of many aspects of ceremonial magick. As a practitioner myself, it was gratifying to read about it from someone who obviously did her research. In so many books the authors don’t even bother to read up on this branch of the pagan religion, so it’s nice to see some truth in these pages. Of course, a lot is fictionalized, which brings me to one issue I had with the book. Innana, one of the main characters, ends up being too powerful. That’s a common problem when an author adds magic into the plot, there’s a real danger of making the characters too powerful, so there is no tension. We never fear for their lives, since we know they can get out of pretty much anything. It’s not a huge fault, especially in this book, but it can get frustrating.

This was a fun read, with any aspects I really enjoyed, from the magical aspects to the character development to some really funny dialogue. I can recommend this to all lovers of paranormal fiction.




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