Those purple eyes…

This is the first part of the ongoing series and I already want to read all the books :). A solid beginning with demons, magic and students.

Darkness Watching (Darkworld #1) by Emma L. Adams

My rating: 

You can find this book on Goodreads and Amazon.

I received this copy from the publisher via Curiosity Quills in exchange for an honest review.

You’ve seen my review of the prequel already? After reading this book, I can say that it does provide some background to what’s going on around Blackstone and how certain characters got together.

This is the story of Ashlyn, a girl who has a secret and she herself doesn’t know what it is yet. What she does know is that she can see demons and that she’s not crazy.

The time has come to choose her next university and since her last review went terribly wrong due to some purple eyes staring at her from the shadows, she seems to be bound to go to Blackstone.

That’s where her new life will begin. She’ll find out that those eyes weren’t just in her mind, that magic is very real and that she can use it and that she should keep an eye on a certain amulet she received from her aunt.

I’ve started reading this book because I signed up for a review tour and part of this tour presents the third book of these series. I had to have at least some background for that read and since Curiosity Quills were nice enough to provide me with the earlier books I just had to squeeze at least some of them before reading the final story. Well, not final, just the newest 🙂 [luckily].

I liked it that author didn’t concentrate only on demon hunting, but also on Ash’s university life and her friends. Well, maybe a bit too little on the friends, but it was just fine for me. After all Ash is the heroine and she should be in the middle of all action, right?

Demon Cat by Patriartis

And there is some action there. Maybe not at the beginning, but at first Ash needs to learn what skills she has and how to use them. Those lessons are way more interesting than whatever she learns in uni, although her knowledge of literature will be useful now and in the future, so I guess she chose just the right course.

There’s this meeting with [almost] all flatmates from uni and they’re all supposed to say what are their goals for this semester/year. Ashlyn says something that fits perfectly to the story, but it’s also true for everyone in there and pretty much every student and the people growing up everywhere. Obviously I forgot to mark it [let’s be real, I’m usually too busy reading to mark anything and I’m usually sorry later] but it was something about discovering herself, who she really is.

I liked the pacing of the story. Rather peaceful at the beginning and then it picked up to just the right speed. The scary moments were nicely placed, although there were some jumps in few places that I’d rather prefer were filled with… well anything. Well, I don’t really know, maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me while I was reading in crowds and couldn’t completely concentrate. But I couldn’t just stop reading! I really liked it.

Although deciding who’s the bad guy was rather easy, the author managed to put some nice twists here and there to keep readers interested. A bit of a romance here, a strangely behaving people there, some unusual places… It all works nicely together. So there is some predictability in the story, but there’s also enough of other things that keep you reading.

I did enjoy the ending too. The final battle, how it all came together. Nicely done.

SPOILER ALERT!

There’s one thing I didn’t particularly like:  I was very disappointed that Terence was the actual bad guy. He was behaving like a demon summoner from the very beginning. I would prefer if one Ash’s friends happened to be the evil demon-possessed sorcerer.

SPOILER OVER

To sum it up – It’s a good beginning to a new young adult series that’s worth checking out. Try it, maybe read a sample, check some other reviews, you might like it :).

Check my review of Fear’s Touch if you haven’t done that yet.

Are you interested in a demon hunting story? Willing to try this one? Or maybe you’ve already read this or previous story and you’re looking forward to more?