The Lost Saint by Bree Despain

Summary:
Grace Divine sacrificed her soul to cure Daniel Kalbi and lost her beloved brother in the process.

Desperate to find Jude, Grace befriends Talbot - a newcomer to town who promises he can help her be a hero. But as soon as the two become closer, the wolf grows in Grace, and her relationship with Daniel is put in danger - in more ways than one.

Unaware of the dark path she is walking, Grace begins to give into the wolf - not realizing that an enemy has returned and a deadly trap is about to be sprung.

The heart-pounding sequel to The Dark Divine delivers the same sizzling romance and thrilling action as Bree Despain's first novel. (from back cover)

Review:

I think that The Lost Saint is a very well-written and exciting sequel to The Dark Divine. If you read my review of the first novel, you will know that I was not particularly enamored with the book, even though I still enjoyed reading it. I am still not in love with this series/trilogy (not sure which it is at this point), but I definitely liked The Lost Saint better than its predessor and definitely recommend it for fans of paranormal reads.

The Lost Saint picks right up where The Dark Divine left off - Jude has run away, Grace is grappling with what happened to her that fated night, and Daniel is still in the picture as Grace's boyfriend. Grace's family is slowly falling apart, as her mother is extremely upset due to Jude's disappearance and Grace's pastor father is absent for extended periods searching for Jude.

What I've come to love about Grace is that she is very strong and independent. And what cracks me up about her is that she refuses to do what anyone tells her. Repeatedly in The Lost Saint, Grace is given commands by her parents, her boyfriend, even her brother occasionally. She pretty much just ignores them and does what she wants anyway, which is awesome in the girl power aspect but is sometimes not so smart because these people are giving her good advice.

A series wouldn't be complete with a love triangle, which develops midway through The Lost Saint. For most of the novel, Daniel is absent and their relationship is strained because Grace won't tell her anything that's going on (even though Grace keeps some secrets herself). Actually Daniel became kind of annoying because he was always lying to Grace where he had been and wouldn't explain himself. So naturally Grace turns to Talbot, who helps her and has some answers to her questions. He even agrees to help her find Jude, something that everyone else in her life doesn't seem to care about. I don't particulary like or dislike Daniel - he's just kind of there, not really doing anything - but I did like Talbot. He's mysterious and has that bad boy thing going on (moreso than Daniel) and I'll be excited to see how the love triangle develops further in the next book.

Speaking of the next book, when is it coming out? Because The Lost Saint left off with such a huge cliffhanger that I really need to find out what happens next. Unfortunately, The Lost Saint hasn't even been released yet so I will probably have to wait awhile.

While this series isn't my all-time favorite, I do enjoy a paranormal book every once and awhile (especially one that doesn't feature vampires). If you've read The Dark Divine, you should definitely read its sequel, which is a superior novel in my opinion.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

FTC: ARC provided by publisher.

Release Date: December 28, 2010

2010/Egmont/404 pages

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

Summary:

Grace Divine - daughter of the local pastor - always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kalbi disappeared and her brother Jude came home covered in his own blood.

Now that Daniel's returned, Grace must choose between her growing attraction to him and her loyalty to her brother.

As Grace gets closer to Daniel, she learns the truth about that most mysterious night and how to save the ones she loves, but it might cost her the one thing she cherishes most: her soul. (taken from inside jacket)

Review:

I started out not liking The Dark Divine at all. I was all ready to write a review saying how this book just didn't click with me. But once I got past the halfway mark, I started liking The Dark Divine more and more. While I still didn't love it, I can definitely say that I enjoyed reading The Dark Divine.

The book took awhile for me to get into. I just wasn't all that interesting in reading about Grace and some of the other characters. Grace annoyed me in small, subtle ways - like how she always described her friend April like a dog. And then Grace's brother, Jude, was so perfect in the beginning it seemed unrealistic (that changes very quickly, however, and makes Jude a much more interesting character). I'm still not completely sold on Daniel, as the only reason that Grace seems to be in love with him was shared history and people telling her not to talk to him.

But as the plot unfolded, those little things I disliked in the beginning were pushed to the side. I loved the religious symbolism and that it wasn't preachy at all. I loved how the mystery tied into the religion stuff and was just pretty awesome. There's a lot of action at the end and a pretty big twist in which things are cleared up while other things are left open.

While I'm not jumping for joy for The Dark Divine, I did like it and enjoyed reading it a lot. I definitely liked it enough to read the sequel, The Lost Saint, which I hope answers some of my questions. If you want to read The Lost Saint, be sure to enter my contest, which ends tomorrow night!

Rating: 7 out of 10.

FTC: borrowed from library.

2010/Egmont/372 pages.