Test Your Faith • The Dark Divine

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain
Series: The Dark Divine #1
Publisher: Egmont USA
Publication Date: December 22, 2009
Source/Format: Bought || Paperback

Grace Divine—daughter of the local pastor—always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kalbi disappeared and her brother Jude came home covered in his own blood. Now that Daniel's returned, Grace must choose between her growing attraction to him and her loyalty to her brother.

As Grace gets closer to Daniel, she learns the truth about that mysterious night and how to save the ones she loves, but it might cost her the one thing she cherishes most: her soul.

The Dark Divine was a pleasant surprise - and has now become one of the series that I'm looking forward to continuing. I thought Bree Despain did a wonderful job tying in the mythology behind her tale with a realistic setting (that makes you feel that it's happening in some small town near you) and relatable, lovable characters. Her novel may have started a bit slow for me, but the pace quickly picked up and I found myself racing to get to the end of the novel just to see what was actually going to happen.

Despain kept me guessing - and every single time I'd come up with a guess, I'd find the story had twisted so that my guess was no longer possible. I loved that aspect of The Dark Divine and I thought she did a really great job keeping the reader in the dark. Though my final few guesses proved to be right, I still thought that for the most part, the mystery in the story was well-maintained until the moment of revelation.

I could relate to Grace's struggle to be herself versus the self that everyone expected her to be as the preacher's daughter. I think that's a struggle everyone goes through and Despain does a nice job of realistically portraying it in The Dark Divine. Grace grew on me as the novel progressed and I think I loved her most when the ending was near (and you'll probably understand why when you read it). And Daniel is just my type - artistic, quiet, brooding and your typical tall, dark and handsome guy. I think I read The Dark Divine mostly because of Daniel; I wanted to find out just about everything about him and Despain definitely does not disappoint when it comes to that.

I'm really looking forward to reading the next book in the series, and seeing what's in store for Grace and Daniel.