BLOG TOUR - REVIEW & GIVEAWAY: Welcome to the Darkness (Darkness Trilogy, #1) by L.M. Justus

Welcome to the Darkness by L.M. Justus
Series: Darkness Trilogy, #1
Publication date: August 5th 2013
Genre: YA Paranormal

Synopsis:

A typical teenager, seventeen-year-old Reed Hennessy doesn’t realize how lucky he is to lead a normal life until he loses everything, including his humanity. The attacker who slaughters his family and destroys their home turns out to be a vampire, a creature Reed had considered a myth.

Now a vampire himself, but with the unique ability to walk in sunlight, Reed struggles in the dark underworld he didn’t even know existed. His only two allies in his fight to stay alive are his reluctant mentor, Nathaniel, a vampire with over two hundred years’ worth of emotional baggage, and Sarah, a rookie cop with a secret ability of her own.

Together, Reed and his companions face a harrowing, cross-country journey before stumbling into a plot which could mean the end of everything for humans and vampires alike.

 

My Thoughts: 

I stood trembling, frozen to the spot. He leaned forward to whisper into my ear. "Welcome to the Darkness."

Welcome to the Darkness starts off with a bang right from page one. Seventeen year old Reed is at home with his parents and sister when he hears a noise coming from downstairs and goes to investigate. What he comes across is a scene that will rip his world apart and change the course of his life forever. Both his parents and his sister have been brutally slaughtered and the man responsible is there ready to do the very same thing to him.

Warm blood burst into my mouth and it was pure ecstasy. I couldn't drink fast enough. I gulped and gulped until at last the world spun away into blackness once again.

While his parents didn't wake from their ordeal, Reed did. Only to discover that he is no longer human. He is in fact a creature that he thought only existed in books and movies. Reed is a vampire. But he's very different to all other vampires and that fact makes him quite valuable to the powers that be in the vampire world. What do they have in store for the newly turned Reed?

Sometimes a book told from multiple perspectives can get a bit confusing. But not so with this book. Told from the point of view of Reed, Nathaniel and Sarah, each voice was really distinctive. The speech and thoughts of Reed were very different from that of both Sarah and Nathaniel and Vive versa. It was great to get inside each of their heads and see what they were thinking though each experience.

When it came to the romance between Reed and Sarah, I can't say that I jumped on board. While the age difference wasn't very big, with Reed being seventeen and Sarah being twenty one, there was a wide gap in their maturity levels. The actual romance scenes were really well written and they were equals during those scenes. It was outside of those scenes that the maturity impacted on the that romance.

I really liked the three main characters. I didn't feel as much of a connection to Sarah as I did to Reed and Nathaniel, though I think Reed's pain and Nathaniel's loneliness came through really loudly to me and I was just drawn to that. But by the end of the book I did find that I was liking Sarah more. I think that all three characters really grew and changed throughout the story.

As for the action and the development of the story, I have no complaints whatsoever. Everything developed perfectly and I was completely engrossed in what I was reading and couldn't read fast enough to find out what would happen next. The ending was completely unexpected and set up superbly for the next book which unfortunately I have a bit of a wait for since book one was just released!!

4/5 Stars.

Author Bio:

Lisa Justus' path to becoming an author took a circuitous route through the University of Waterloo where she earned a Bachelor of Mathematics, followed by jobs in quality assurance and technical writing at a high-tech company. With a keen interest in creative fiction, she wrote her first fantasy novel as part of NaNoWriMo as well as an early chapter book for her kids when they were younger.  Her YA paranormal fantasy novel Welcome to the Darkness is the first book in the Darkness Trilogy.

These days Lisa is busy writing her fourth novel, reading, finishing her basement, doing volunteer work, and trying to stay in shape by running somewhat regularly. She, her husband, and their three children live in Ottawa, Ontario.

Author Links:

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