Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Madeline MacFadden ("Mad Mac" to fans of her bestselling magical stories) spent blissful childhood summers in Ticonderoga Falls. And this is where she wants to be now that her adult life is falling apart. The dense surrounding forest holds many memories, some joyous, some tantalizingly only half-remembered. And she's always believed there was something living in these wooded hills.
But Maddie doesn't remember the dark parts -- and knows nothing of the mountain legend that holds the area's terrified residents captive. She has no recollection of Ash, the strange and magnificent creature who once saved her life as a child, even though it is the destiny of his kind to prey upon humanity. And soon it will be the Harvest. . . the time to feast.
Once again Maddie's dreams -- and her soul -- are in grave danger. But magic runs deep during Harvest. Even a spinner of enchanted tales has wondrous powers of her own.
My Review
I actually quite liked this book, but there were so many questions left unanswered at the end that I could only give it a 3 star rating.
Maddie takes her son and dog back to the little mountain village she visited as a child to get over her writer's block, caused by her divorce and her ex-husband's new wedding to her former best friend. What she finds there is not what she expected at all.
Ash is a darkling, a shape shifter of sorts who can change his skin into any human skin he can envision. He is also the guardian of Ticonderoga Falls after a curse was placed on the village and all the people in the village carry his mark. No other darkling can feed on them without his permission. This was my first problem with this book. The idea of the darklings was an interesting one, different from other shape shifters, but they were never properly explained. They were described as being bigger than humans with long claws, sharp teeth and wings, so whilst I knew what they looked like, I still didn't really know what they were.
The darklings harvest people's dreams, but there was no description of how they did this. They also have a power of magic to make people fall asleep so they can harvest these dreams. When Ash's two cousins drain a man of his dreams, Maddie finds him flat, as if all the insides had been drained out of him and he has 2 puncture wounds in his neck. Are they vampires? Do they drain the blood to access the dreams? No idea!!!
Each short chapter takes the point of view of a different character and whilst I didn't like this at first, the style grew on me and it was interesting to see how the different characters interpreted the events.
There was no real romance in the book and whilst Maddie claimed she was attracted to Ash, there was no reason for it. He also fell for her, but again no reason as to why. Yes 2 people can be attracted to each other, but to claim to love each other without a relationship even being started was strange to me.
An interesting story, with original ideas, that just need a bit more explanations and fine tuning really.
I received this book as a ARC from Netgalley and would like to thank the author and publishers for allowing me to review honestly.
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