Review: A BRUSH OF DARKNESS

A Brush Of Darkness by Allison Pang

Genre: adult urban fantasy

About A Brush Of Darkness:

I had a naked incubus in my bedroom. With a frying pan of half-cooked bacon and a hard-on. And a unicorn bite on his ass. Christ, this was turning out to be a weird morning.

Six months ago, Abby Sinclair was struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Now, she has an enchanted iPod, a miniature unicorn living in her underwear drawer, and a magical marketplace to manage. But despite her growing knowledge of the OtherWorld, Abby isn’t at all prepared for Brystion, the dark, mysterious, and as sexy as sin incubus who shows up searching for his sister—and is convinced Abby has the key to the succubus’s whereabouts.. Abby has enough problems without having this seductive shape-shifter literally invading her dreams to get information. But when her Faery boss and some of her friends vanish as well, Abby and Brystion must form an uneasy alliance. As Abby is sucked deeper and deeper into this perilous world of faeries, angels, and daemons, she realizes her life is in as much danger as her heart—and there’s no one she can trust to save her.

Source: Info in the About A Brush Of Darkness was taken from the author's website at http://www.heartofthedreaming.com/books/ on 15/08/2010.

Buy Link(s):

Author Links:
Allison Pang at Simon & Schuster
Allison Pang at GoodReads
Blog

My Thoughts:

The first few chapters were slightly disorienting because the explanation about Abby's world didn't really start until about chapter 4 or 5. So one can say that the world building was a slow build-up to a beautiful architecture. I would give it a 4.5 out of 5.

The first 8 chapters or so just repeatedly extols how clueless our main protagonist is. As if the author can't pound it enough into the readers' head just how clueless she truly is! It just goes on and on repeatedly... Character development? I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5. But... ah, yes, the sassy unicorn sidekick. Another character love! From a reader's point of view, I think the sidekick's character is more loveable than the main protag...

I like the cover! It was what caught my urban fantasy reader's eyes. Yes, I'm shallow that way! I like the way the artist played with the light on the background where it highlighted one side of the model but bluish on the other. To my reader's eyes, it went down very well with the title, A Brush Of Darkness.

Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 3.5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 5
Pace = 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

Acknowledgements:
A huge THANK YOU to Satisfaction For Insatiable Readers for hosting a contest and making it possible for me to win A Brush Of Darkness by Allison Pang!!

Unicorn image was from this site: http://blog.b92.net/text/6419/Da-li-je-ateizam-religija on 30/01/2011.

Winner of A BRUSH OF DARKNESS

The winner of the free copy of A Brush Of Darkness with Allison Pang's Guest Post & Giveaway is:

Lillie of Alise On Life

Congratulations to our winner!!! Please reply to our email with your postal address where you want your book sent to.

Acknowledgements:
Thank you to FinePrint Literary Management for organizing the blog tour and giveaway!

GuestPost: ALLISON PANG & Giveaway

We have the wonderful debut author Allison Pang guest posting with us today! Author of the most awaited book, A Brush Of Darkness... so let's welcome, Allison Pang!!

It started with a poem.

Specifically the poem Thomas the Rhymer, which is the tale of the Scottish poet True Thomas and his adventures with the Queen of Elfland. In the poem, he stands at a crossroads with the Queen, with three paths to choose from. One leads to Heaven, one to Hell and one to Faerie, which is where she takes him.

I used this concept as the foundation for the magic system for A Brush of Darkness, and then branched out from there. I think the key thing to making world building realistic is coming up with believable rules that make sense (and that the author follows). Asking a reader to suspend disbelief is dependent upon this, because once the author starts breaking these rules for the sake of the plot, it’s very easy for the reader to lose faith in the author and the book.

In BoD, I have three realms of magical beings (OtherFolk)– those of Heaven (the Light Path – angels and unicorns, etc.), those of Hell (the Dark Path – vampires and daemons) and those of Faerie (elves, fae and the like). There are some additional layers between that, but that’s the overall core. The OtherFolk can travel between their worlds and ours via a series of silver roads known as the CrossRoads, which are basically ley lines.

However, I didn’t want these OtherFolk to just be able to come and go as they please into our world – there had to be a price. That’s where the idea of TouchStones came in. (And the TouchStone concept came from another legend of a particular vampiric fairy who used to feed on poets. She was their muse…and they lived very short lives. LOL). In my world, the OtherFolk have to form a written Contract with a TouchStone (a human) in order to be able to hang around in the mortal realm for any extended length of time.

The length of the Contract can vary, and since it can be physically demanding, there is usually some sort of reward for the TouchStone at the end of it. A Faery Protectorate oversees these Contracts to make sure there’s at least *some* element of fairness behind it, but there is still a “buyer beware” vibe that mortals need to be aware of before agreeing to it.

There’s a bit more to it than that, but because the world building becomes so complex so quickly, I don’t infodump it onto the reader right off the bat. Which is another key point with suspension of disbelief. If the author overwhelms the reader with too much strangeness all at once, you risk the reader becoming confused and frustrated and much more likely to put the book down. On the other hand, not giving them enough info isn’t very helpful either.

I don’t believe in spoonfeeding the reader everything up front, but my heroine, Abby, is very new to this OtherFolk world. The reader learns with her and even though things may seem a bit mysterious at first, I hope that’s one of the things that will keep people interested.

Links:
Allison Pang at Simon & Schuster
Allison Pang at GoodReads
Blog

A Brush Of Darkness by Allison Pang

About A Brush Of Darkness:

I had a naked incubus in my bedroom. With a frying pan of half-cooked bacon and a hard-on. And a unicorn bite on his ass. Christ, this was turning out to be a weird morning.

Six months ago, Abby Sinclair was struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Now, she has an enchanted iPod, a miniature unicorn living in her underwear drawer, and a magical marketplace to manage. But despite her growing knowledge of the OtherWorld, Abby isn’t at all prepared for Brystion, the dark, mysterious, and as sexy as sin incubus who shows up searching for his sister—and is convinced Abby has the key to the succubus’s whereabouts.. Abby has enough problems without having this seductive shape-shifter literally invading her dreams to get information. But when her Faery boss and some of her friends vanish as well, Abby and Brystion must form an uneasy alliance. As Abby is sucked deeper and deeper into this perilous world of faeries, angels, and daemons, she realizes her life is in as much danger as her heart—and there’s no one she can trust to save her.

Source: Info in the About A Brush Of Darkness was taken from the author's website at http://www.heartofthedreaming.com/books/ on 15/08/2010.

Buy Link(s):

Giveaway:
A lucky commenter will win a copy of this book  :)

Leave a way to contact you in case you win. Giveaway ends on the 6th of February.

Extra Entries:
Spread some love and leave the url where we can verify it.

Amendments (30/01/2011 05:43am GMT):

• Please make comments relevant to the post.
• You do not have to be a follower to enter this giveaway but if you are, it is highly appreciated! :)
• Have questions? Clarifications? Email us at chericenter-allisonpang [at] yahoo [dot] com
• Please read the Disclaimer as it forms part of the giveaway rules.

Acknowledgements:

Thank you to FinePrint Literary Management for hosting this blog tour and giveaway!

I SO WANT TO READ THIS: A BRUSH OF DARKNESS

A Brush Of Darkness by Allison Pang

About A Brush Of Darkness:

I had a naked incubus in my bedroom. With a frying pan of half-cooked bacon and a hard-on. And a unicorn bite on his ass. Christ, this was turning out to be a weird morning.

Six months ago, Abby Sinclair was struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Now, she has an enchanted iPod, a miniature unicorn living in her underwear drawer, and a magical marketplace to manage. But despite her growing knowledge of the OtherWorld, Abby isn’t at all prepared for Brystion, the dark, mysterious, and as sexy as sin incubus who shows up searching for his sister—and is convinced Abby has the key to the succubus’s whereabouts.. Abby has enough problems without having this seductive shape-shifter literally invading her dreams to get information. But when her Faery boss and some of her friends vanish as well, Abby and Brystion must form an uneasy alliance. As Abby is sucked deeper and deeper into this perilous world of faeries, angels, and daemons, she realizes her life is in as much danger as her heart—and there’s no one she can trust to save her.

Source: Info in the About A Brush Of Darkness was taken from the author's website at http://www.heartofthedreaming.com/books/ on 15/08/2010.

Buy Link(s):


I won this book as a pre-order at the blog contest at Satisfaction For Insatiable Readers! THANK YOU!!

MR. MAILMAN: A BRUSH OF DARKNESS & BAYOU MOON

A huge THANK YOU to:

• Satisfaction For Insatiable Readers for hosting a contest and making it possible for me to win A Brush Of Darkness by Allison Pang pre-order!!

• The Eclectic Reader for hosting a contest and making it possible for me to win Bayou Moon!

Couldn't wait to find these in my mail!! *big smile* This wait is worth another Mr. Mailman feature! A kind of "blog meme" started by Juju over at Tales Of Whimsy.

About Mr. Mailman:

Mr. Mailman is a feature Juju decided to try. Periodically when there is a book in route which she is anxiously hoping to find when she gets home to her mailbox - Juju would feature Mr. Mailman.

Mr. Mailman is a hybrid of Waiting on Wednesday by Breaking the Spine and In My Mailbox by the Story Siren. Please feel free to grab the logo and feature your Mr. Mailman request on your site. Please leave a link to your Mr. Mailman request in the comments at Tales Of Whimsy.

Source: Info in the About Mr. Mailman was pinched from Juju's blog, the Tales Of Whimsy, on 04/12/09.

A Brush Of Darkness by Allison Pang

I had a naked incubus in my bedroom. With a frying pan of half-cooked bacon and a hard-on. And a unicorn bite on his ass. Christ, this was turning out to be a weird morning.

Six months ago, Abby Sinclair was struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Now, she has an enchanted iPod, a miniature unicorn living in her underwear drawer, and a magical marketplace to manage. But despite her growing knowledge of the OtherWorld, Abby isn’t at all prepared for Brystion, the dark, mysterious, and as sexy as sin incubus who shows up searching for his sister—and is convinced Abby has the key to the succubus’s whereabouts. Abby has enough problems without having this seductive shape-shifter literally invading her dreams to get information. But when her Faery boss and some of her friends vanish as well, Abby and Brystion must form an uneasy alliance. As Abby is sucked deeper and deeper into this perilous world of faeries, angels, and daemons, she realizes her life is in as much danger as her heart—and there’s no one she can trust to save her.

Source: Info in the above synopsis was taken from the author's website at http://www.heartofthedreaming.com/books/ on 01/11/10.

Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews
Edge Novels book 2

The Edge lies between worlds, on the border between the Broken, where people shop at Walmart and magic is a fairytale–and the Weird, where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny…

Cerise Mar and her unruly clan are cash poor but land rich, claiming a large swathe of the Mire, the Edge swamplands between the state of Louisiana and the Weird. When her parents vanish, her clan’s long-time rivals are suspect number one.

But all is not as it seems. Two nations of the Weird are waging a cold war fought by feint and espionage, and their conflict is about to spill over into the Edge—and Cerise’s life . William, a changeling soldier who left behind the politics of the Weird, has been forced back into service to track down a rival nation’s spymaster.

When William’s and Cerise’s missions lead them to cross paths, sparks fly—but they’ll have to work together if they want to succeed…and survive.

Source: Info in the above synopsis was taken from the author's website at http://edge.ilona-andrews.com/books/bayou-moon/ on 31/10/10.