This book was a random selection, however I can honestly say my estimation of it went up when I discovered that the nail polish on the toenails on the cover is actually available for purchase. Excellent marketing. I confess aesthetically the cover is great. The glut of supernatural novels that have the black background with a brightly colored significant object, all based off the original covers on Stephanie Meyer's novels gets monotonous after a while. I confess the tulle is an interesting touch, and a worthy variation of the now standard YA book cover. Looking at the cover of the second book in the series The Lost Soul however they seem to be following the color scheme of the Beautiful books, Beautiful Creatures was black and purple and Beautiful Darkness aqua like The Lost Soul. Just an interesting is entirely erroneous observation.Okay enough blabbering, the book. Supernatural of course but with an interesting metaphysical twist (I was going to tag it as something but it really isn't religious or truly metaphysical). The main character, Grace Divine is a minister's daughter and part of a close knit, extremely conservative, almost sickeningly do-gooder family. THey love thy neighbor to the point that it actually hurts them. We get a good look at what it means to be part of a Minnesota religious community (you work your ass off all the time) for much of the book, with the action flowing in and out of trips to soup kitchens, goodwill clothing collections, Bible study, and endless potluck suppers. Daniel Kalbi is one of the unfortunates the Divine's have taken in, adopting him after he is abused by their neighbors. He has returned after many years, and there is still a dark secret surrounding his departure. Grace begins to fall for him, despite everyones warnings to the contrary and the bodies of humans and animals that keep turing up.
The story is well constructed and the mystery of what really happened between daniel and her brother Jude keeps Grace interesting. The romance is slow to reach fruition and reminiscent of Twilight, with similar results, but Daniel is much more interesting because he is a bad boy. If you can weed your way through some of the squeaky clean hypocrisy and cliches its not a bad read. Bree Despain shows promise, hopefully in the future she'll turn her hand to something more unique, because I think then she'll really shine.
