Grace Divine always tried to do the right thing. Growing up in a devout family, she was raised into a girl with a heart of gold. When she spots Daniel, her once almost-brother who lived with her family as a child, she knows he needs her help. Helping him proves difficult when Jude, Grace's brother, makes Grace promise to stay away from Daniel. Grace is not sure what happened years ago, but something changed between Daniel and Jude, and Daniel was never seen again. Until now. Falling for the boy but feeling guilty for Jude's sake, Grace tries to help fix the broken bonds between Daniel and her family. Instead, she learns what he has been hiding, and the mystery of Daniel's disappearance starts to piece together.
I bought The Dark Divine on Kindle because I had read a good review and it was only $2.39 on Amazon. The cover is also extremely pretty! I wasn't quite sure I would like it, because of the religious aspect. Being a deeply religious person, I tend to stray from religious fiction, just in case it gets weird or even blasphemous. This book was not at all either of those things, but very easy to relate with. I could identify with Grace's family and her beliefs. It was actually very refreshing to read about a girl with a real family and real values, in stark contrast with many parentless teen books. Grace is not "goody" or "holier than thou," or annoyingly nice. She is easy to like.
The book was an emotional roller coaster, and mysterious. I was dying to know what was happening! It had a ton of plot twists. I even audibly gasped a few times and shouted "No!" into the book, much to the annoyance of my friend in the bus seat with me. There was a lot of suspense, and some good action scenes too. Just when I thought I could predict who was who and what would happen, something would change and I would get shocked all over again!
Daniel, I was surprised to discover, I really liked. I'm not really a broody, stereotypical bad-boy type, and at first I pegged him as one. He isn't! He's actually very deep and nice and goodhearted. He treats Grace with respect but still shamelessly flirts with her. There was no contest, I fell for that guy!
The Dark Divine really blew me away. It was very well thought out. Some don't like Despain's style of writing, but I thought it was well-written, for the most part. I don't know how I felt about the chapters being broken up into "At school," "On the way home," "Later," etc. It didn't affect the story, which was good enough that I fell in love with the book. The Lost Saint is #2; I'm looking forward to reading more about the Divines!
4.4/5
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