BOOK REVIEW - A BRUSH OF DARKNESS by ALLISON PANG - ABBY SINCLAIR # 1

By: Allison Pang

Published By : Pocket Books

Released : 25th January 2011

Details : Paperback, 343 Pages

RATING : 4 BAD BOY BRYSTION STARS!!

Book Blurb : Taken From Goodreads

The man of her dreams might be the cause of her nightmares.

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 sexy-as- sin incubus searching for his sister, convinced Abby has the key to the succubus’s whereabouts. Abby has enough problems without having this seductive shape-shifter literally invade 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 she is sucked deeper and deeper into this perilous world of faeries, angels, and daemons, Abby realizes her life is in as much danger as her heart—and there’s no one she can trust to save her.

BOOK REVIEW: A BRUSH OF DARKNESS

You gotta love a book that starts off with , “Cat piss and cabbages”. followed by some Tom Jones , ‘She’s A Lady’,playing away in the back of your brain. I found it an awesome way to get me into the mood for this book. Well not necessarily the cat piddle..hehe!!

You can throw Urban Fantasy at me any day of the week I looooove it. There is just something about the urban world authors build. Add in the sidekick, be it animal , fey, paranormal or human bff into the story, in this case we have Phinneas aka Phin, the cheeky, naughty , knicker loving fifteen inch tall unicorn. Stir in a mystery and a chicky babe, albeit naive to the cause who has the smexi admirer and we are cooking.

‘A Brush of Darkness’ is all that. Abby Sinclair is the naive TouchStone to Moira the Protectorate. Now I must stop and say, I am still unsure of what a TouchStone does. I am also not overly sure what Moira the Protectorate does or what a contract entails. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I just needed something in the front of the book to say TouchStone = ? It was just something that niggled at me because I kept reading Abby the Touchstone and I was waiting to be enlightened. But all that aside, I enjoyed Allison’s world and her mystery she gave us.

What I thought was different about Abby’s character is she has a limpy knee, which doesn’t really cause her any problems in this book, but her major handicap is her seizures she gets. Abby has to deal with seizures on top of all these things she has thrown at her.

Enter, the big fella Brystion , aka Ion, who is of course gorgeous, but complicated , oh and he is an Incubus.....complicated....much?

Moira is missing, and Robert her Angel, cranky pants, body guard isn’t too happy with Abby. She is on her ‘L’ Plates with all this TouchStone stuff and is naive about a few things, which makes cranky pants Robert...well crankier.

Brystion wants to find his sister, Sonja, the succubus, who has gone missing. Then Charlie, Robert’s main squeeze goes missing and everybody wants answers and a whole lot more from Abby, who just wants Phin to stay out of her knicker draw.

I love the Art Gallery scenes with the paintings, I thought they were really well written. There was a further chapter with the paintings that I really visually saw well and it was my fave chapter/scenes in the book.

Who is batting for good, and who is appearing to bat for all things good....this is the question?

I enjoyed Allison’s world and am looking forward to ‘A Sliver of Shadow’, cause there is some things I just wanna know. Plus more Brystion is always a plus even if he comes in a very complicated package.

Michelle