Review-A Darkness Strange and Lovely

Last year I read Susan's debut novel Something Strange and Deadly and I really enjoyed it.  I've always been a fan of zombies and the book used necromancy, something I wasn't terribly familiar with, to create said zombies.  This book picks up shortly after where the first one left off, and it doesn't take long for things to really heat up.  I read this book in three days, just blasting through the 400 pages ruthlessly.  When it comes to sequels that come out about a year after the first I have the problem of not being able to remember everything that happened in the previous book, but this book flawlessly helped me remember without being too repetitive and including new information.  I love the fact that we were introduced to some new characters, and the fact that we got to see almost all of the characters from book one (that weren't dead).  The fact that Susan doesn't pull punches when it comes to sacrificing her character's body parts makes me happy, because, let's face it, when fighting a whole bunch of dead things that have come back to life what's the chance that you're gonna come out without a scratch?  Not very big.  There were a few things that bugged me, one was that the main villain from the first one really disappeared in this book, which I found a little odd.  The second was the fact that Eleanor made some poor choices.  I know, I know, everyone makes poor choices, and poor choices make a book more interesting, but it's those moments when the main character tries and fails to justify poor choices but keeps doing them anyways that really bugs me.  Despite those two things I really enjoyed the book.  The setting was amazing, the story really came together and made a lot of sense, we got to see more of characters from book one and new characters that I hope to see again.  I can't wait to see how Susan wraps everything up in the third book, and maybe I'll finally get around to reading the novella she wrote that takes place before the events in book one happened.  Susan is an author to watch, and if for some reason you aren't a fan of this series I would highly recommend you read whatever else she writes in the near future, and if you haven't tried her books I'm not sure what you're waiting for.

Out July 25, 2013

4.5/5 dust spirits

*Thanks to Harper Teen for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review