Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

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.

Review by Patrick:

I was disappointed with this sequel to Beautiful Creatures. It wasn't terrible in that the story significantly changed or it didn't flow from one book to the next. No I thought the first book was excellent, and I was let down by the expectation that this book would be just as great. Everyone knows that Lion King 2 just doesn't compare to the Lion King.

Anyways, the book was good. It explained a lot about Ethan and his talents. Although I was stumped about how he could not tell where some of his visions were coming from. It was obvious to me as the reader, or maybe I've just been familiar enough with other magical writings to know.

I think I just wanted more Ethan and Lena. I was expecting them to fight the darkness themselves, instead Ethan has to be all heroic and do everything by himself (well, that didn't quite happen, but it was without Lena).

Even though the book wasn't what I was expecting, it definitely wasn't a bad book. It gave a lot of history and explained a lot of missing information from the first book. And it set up a cliff hanger at the end, so you have to read the next one. I'm going to rate this a 2.5. I know that was a significant drop from the first book, but I'm still excited to read the next one.

Next: I'm finishing up The Silmarillion, which should be done soon, and still on Inkspell. I also just checked out Perfect Scoundrels.