Title: Beautiful Darkness
Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Series: Castor Chronicles series
Pages: 503 pages hardcover/paperback, 508 ebook
Rating: ★★★★

Beautiful Creatures was on my meh list. It wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t horrible. It was a nice read, but it wasn’t one of my best. Beautiful Darkness was able to expand on the world created in the first novel and make the characters do things and grow in ways I didn’t see coming. I found myself losing sleep in order to read just a little bit more, rationing that decision with the power of caffeine. It takes quite a book to make me consider losing sleep.

The story of Ethan and Lena continues on shortly after the events of Beautiful Creatures. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’m not going to do much of a recap. I will say, however, that the events of the first book make everything that happens in this book make sense.

Lena is pulling away from Ethan and he doesn’t know why or what to do. She isn’t sure who she is or what she can do and that makes her worry about losing herself and hurting the people she loves. It’s more than the typically supernatural teen “I love you, but I can hurt you, so I’m going to leave” plotline. It doesn’t feel drawn-out or like the authors were trying to force something that wasn’t there.

I like that the story is told from Ethan’s point of view. It gives the complexity of the story just a touch of simplicity because we aren’t trying to figure out the Castor world as we try to figure out the problems the novel puts in front of us. We learn about the Castor world as Ethan does and as it ties into the story instead of trying to add more layers to an already complex story.

Beautiful Darkness makes up for what Beautiful Creatures lacked. There was a fantastic plotline, plus we got to explore Ethan and Lena as people. They grew and discovered things about themselves and the world that makes for a promising future in the next novels. I’m looking forward to getting started on the next book.

If Beautiful Darkness sounds like your kind of book, you can purchase it here:
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