Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Pages: 512
Pub Date: October 12, 2010
Author Website/Blog: http://www.beautifulcreaturesthebook.com
Synopsis: Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen. Sometimes life-ending. Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.
Beautiful Darkness was a huge step up from the first book, Beautiful Creatures. I really felt we get to connect with so many characters even more. We even got to meet some more characters, that may have only been mentioned in passing originally. This book opens a ton of new doors, that frankly should not be opened, but we as readers cheer the authors on in opening them. This book is a no put down, you simply can not start it, then come back to it a few months later. You cant even come back to it a few minutes later. This was a thrilling, heart pounding sequel, that simply leaves you wondering and hoping. This perhaps is even better than the first book. Beautiful Creatures left us on a ledge, Beautiful Darkness is the bridge, from that ledge to another. Another ledge, that simply leaves us hoping for more from Kami and Margie.