GENRE: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance
PARANORMAL ELEMENT: Werewolves
PARANORMAL ELEMENT: Werewolves
PUBLISHED: EgmontUSA (December 22, 2009)
SYNOPSIS:
In THE DARK DIVINE by Bree Despain 
(2009) the main character, Grace Divine is a pastor’s daughter trying to live up to her name, which means “heavenly help.” She is kept in the dark about what happened to Daniel, the neighbor boy they took in from an abusive home. She just wants to know the truth about why her saintly brother Jude won’t let her see him now that he’s back after three years, why he disappeared after Jude was found bleeding to death, why her parents are acting weird about it all.
REVIEW:
The story is weaved around this pastor’s family with a deep Christian theme without being preachy. Congrats Bree, you succeeded in demonstrating Christian values, you even took me to your little church, made me sit through a Christmas cantata and I didn’t want to pull my hair out. It wasn’t too cheesey, it wasn’t too annoying. It was actually thoughtful and well planned to only “live” the theme, instead of “preach” the theme. For that I thank you!Meanwhile, Grace is diving into a relationship with a bad boy. We (as the reader) are in the dark along with Grace about what is really going on and living off our own suspicions (because of the synopsis). There were a few elements that surprised me, I usually can guess what will happen next, but there was at least a few small surprises.
I love the combined romance and supernatural aspects of the book. I liked how Grace seemed to be flying by the seat of her pants for most of the book. She can’t help it, she just does what she does. I liked her character a lot. She cracked me up a couple of times too which relieved some of the pressure in this tense book of secrets and monsters. She doesn’t even know what she’s done after she’s done it and people have to keep explaining stuff to her. She doesn’t even understand what kind of sacrifice she had made in the end out of true love. (I relate very much with that kind of person, that’s how I was as a teen—flying by the seat of my pants.)
On the negative I must say it dragged a little bit in the beginning. But the story had to be built somewhere. But there is no sense of movement until dead center of the book. It was such a quick and easy read, it didn’t take too long to get past that.
Daniel, as a character, was a little less than par. He was a hot, brooding guy but his depth was on the shallow side. I didn’t care for him enough. I think if we had see more good flash backs of their childhood together it would have helped deepen him more, although I liked him nonetheless.
RATING:
