Reading Under the Willow Tree

Review also posted on my blog

*The publisher provided me with this book for review, via Netgalley.*

Dark Kiss by Michelle Rowen is the latest book in the new craze of ‘Angel’ YA. I had a lot of expectations for this book, firstly it is published by Harlequin Teen (who have published some of the best YA around at the moment) secondly, it has a dark and moody cover with a really, really hot guy on the front. Thirdly, it appeared to be about kissing. (I am easily pleased)

For the most part Dark Kiss lived up to the expectation. Did it do something new with the genre? Not really, but it still didn’t feel like I had read this book before (which is something that is happening more and more often with these angel books.)

I did really enjoy this book. It was an easy read, it was easy to get into and it didn’t take me that long to get through. It had all the required elements, some romance, peril, humour and a ton of UST.

It was well explained, well thought out and didn’t drag or lose pace. It did have a couple of scratch the paper, smell the cheese moments but it wasn’t too bad and I can always forgive a small amount of cheesiness.

For the most part the characters were good. The males were significantly stronger than the females. Bishop is a good romantic lead. He is brave, brooding and a little cheeky. I also really loved his brother Kraven, who was extremely irritating but impossible to dislike. I think it is the relationship between the two brothers where Rowen really wins here. The drama and pain between them grows page by page and I think that is where the heart of the whole story lies, with two brothers who have done nothing but hurt each other.

My main complaint about this book is Samantha. She is not terrible, she starts well and she ends well. But it is the middle where I had a bit of a problem with her. She just seemed to freak out about everything which I understand but it was done in a really aggravating way. Then there is her decision-making skills which, to be honest, were pretty much non-existent. Also, she seemed to shift between insecure shy girl to over-confident kick ass girl in the blink of an eye and it seemed to happen all the time. It got to the point where I felt enraged. Luckily she cut it out fairly quickly and by the end I had forgotten how annoying she was earlier in the book.

This book is not going to change your life, it is not going to keep you up at night because you can do nothing but think about it. But it is a good enjoyable read that has some real potential for the future books in the series. (Although it is looking like it could turn love triangle-ish. However, if it goes into the triangle I think it is going to go into I could get behind it. I am probably wrong but that is the feeling I picked up on.)

I would recommend this to YA fans and I will definitely be reading the next book when it comes out next year.