I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
A Brush of Darkness
in Paperback edition on January 25, 2011 and has 343 pages.
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First in the Abby Sinclair urban fantasy series revolving around a very special human badly in need of…well, not a break, so much as love.
My Take
Do we ever find out why Brandon sent prospects by Abby?
Okay, I can understand creating tension by leaving off the whole story, but, ya know, eventually, I DO want to know. Just what was Brystion doing with Abby on the dance floor that was so, I dunno, diplomatically?, ill-mannered? I did enjoy all the head-of-a-pin jokes.
This is one of the oddest romances with some good love scenes, but it was very unsettled all the way to the end.
Well, that’s funny…Abby is fighting, baiting Brystion and he dives in for a kiss only to purr, “How’s that ego?” Her reply? “Rock hard from the feel of it… Just the way she likes it.” God, she’s a tease. She’s so into it and ramping it up and then she suddenly stops. Over and over. Still, she’ll use him to fight her dreams.
I don’t see what’s wrong with glamoring the eggplant?
No. No. Pang has Abby declaring that she knows what she’s doing. And she so does not. Gimme a break. How stupid is this book?
I love it! Being a regular on World of Warcraft saves Abby’s bacon. God knows, she hasn’t any skills. Although, this whole rescue sequence was way too easy. Abby whines about OtherFolk treating her as a second-class person, but she turns around and does the same thing to OtherFolk — disses Ion for being an incubus because, oh, yeah, he can help what he was born as. Of course, Ion does rather ask for it. “Signed it. Eyes wide shut and everything.”
Why were so many needed? Why would Ion/Brystion believe ANYthing that Maurice says??
Abby hasn’t a frickin’ clue…
The Story
Damn it! Where’s Moira? It’s been four months and Abby is never so aware of all she doesn’t know than when Brystion shows up at the PIT. Succubi are missing and it’s Moira’s responsibility. Only Brystion doesn’t trust a fae with an angel bodyguard.
It’s Katy’s kidnapping and Brystion’s taunting that ends up with him in jail and Abby under guard. When Katy’s ransom demand arrives, it requires Abby to take some unexpected steps.
Then people Abby thinks of as friends sets them all up. Over and over.
Abby had trusted Brystion, given him permission to enter her dreams, her Heart. Now that hopelessness that was Abby’s life is gone, life has become valuable to her again, if only she weren’t heading to her Doom.
The Characters
Abby Sinclair is a Dreamer and a Keystone — a very rare thing. More rare in a human. She’s also an idiot. She had a lousy, a really lousy, Contract with a vampire and does it make her more cautious about the next Contract she makes with Moira? Oh, HELL NO. So, as this story begins, Abby is Moira’s TouchStone. I mean, why not, events spiraled out of her control and destroyed the life she expected. There is nothing for her now, now that she has this gimpy leg and a metal plate in her head, so why not accept this bargain… As Moira’s very untrained TouchStone, she runs the PIT, a terrible and very stinky bookstore as well as the Marketplace, which only opens from midnight to one for the OtherFolk.
Moira is the fae queen’s daughter and the Protectorate herself out in our world. Maurice Delacroix had been Moira’s TouchStone for centuries. Suddenly he’s out and Abby’s in. And he’s behind the demon kidnapping. Robert is her angel bodyguard from Boston; Charlie is Robert’s TouchStone.
Brystion / Ion is an incubus, an incredible singer, and desperate to find his sister — Sonja is a succubus — which is why he needs Moira.
Melanie St. James is Human but with the gift of her fiddle. One that allows her to open a Door. Brandon is a werewolf bartender who is constantly looking for the one. And sending them via Abby. Katy is seventeen and overly eager to learn more about OtherFolk even when kidnapped.
Topher Fitzroy is an artist, one whom Ion says has faded. He wants to paint a series of TouchStone paintings. Hzule, Rayo and Turnip are demons trying to capture Abby. Roweena DuMont is the Fae liaison for Ion’s case involving Moira’s disappearance. A teeny, tiny unicorn, Phineas, is truly happy to TouchStone with Abby. The little perv.
There are Fae, angels, demons and the Faery Protectorate watches over it all. There are four Paths and each has an Hour when it is easiest for OtherFolk to travel. A TouchStone makes it even easier, allowing the OtherFolk with whom a human has bonded to walk the CrossRoads between worlds — even vampires can walk in daylight. To form a TouchStone, an OtherFolk and a Human must make a contract which lasts seven years, forming a bond that normally forbids an OtherFolk from touching or interfering with the Human.
The Cover and Title
The cover is is a dark residential street of four-storey or more buildings with a single source of red light flaring to backlight Abby Sinclair elbow-length, buckled bra top and barely-there pleated skirt, and torn fishnet stockings, a blue topaz she got from her mom pulsing around her neck as her streaked hair flares in a breeze. Hands resting on a cocked hip, Abby is waiting…
The title is what it’s all about, an artist and A Brush of Darkness.
