I can't believe I love this book for its sensuality, not explicit, just sensual to the imagination in all of its paranormal glory.

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal
Authors: Erin Eveland
Date Published: July 1, 2014
Publisher: Selladore Press
Edition: paperback (I got an eARC via Netgalley)
ISBN: 9780990325406
Size: 320

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One Girl. One Boy. And the Masters of Darkness. See the Shadow Creatures. They are everywhere. But you can’t run from the shadows. Or the Masters who control them.

At the age of sixteen, Catherine lives with an alcoholic mother and impoverished welfare. While searching for a way to tell her only friend Nathan of her desire for him, a hidden world starts to unfold with the coincidental meeting of a man in black, Jorgen. With this encounter, questions arise and unexplained events start to occur, causing Catherine to confront her past and an uncertain future.

Upon graduating High School, Nathan cooks at a local bar wondering how he can leave town with the girl he’s fallen in love with, Catherine. All seems hopeless until a man in black, Artros, introduces himself offering power greater than all the money that drives the world.

Ancient enemies with the power to control the Darkness and its Shadow Creatures, two Masters will fight to the death for what one girl may hold – the ultimate power of Light.

Review

I honestly don't know what to think of the romance in this book anymore. I'd like to imagine there's a love square here. Haha. Yes, not a love triangle but a love square (if such a term could exist) because there are 3 men involved. And to be honest, I don't know which one to root for. I'm just waiting for what will happen next. I hope that the author could keep this kind of a plot up until the last book of the series because it's one hell of an exciting emotional ride.

Darkness is a story typical of a good vs. evil plot with the exception that it's more focused on the usage of Darkness. For now, let's settle for Darkness being initially as Light, a life force that turns into Darkness when that energy is harnessed. The book touches on the usual paranormal world with characters having the ability to enter the astral plane with astral projection, interpret people's lives and future with aural colors, and manifest things with using the Force, I mean Darkness, among others.

For you to understand why I'm torn among 3 males of the book, let me describe them here. But first, let us establish that all Men in Black (people who use the power of Darkness) are elegantly youthful and beautiful.

Artros

— a power-lusty Master of Darkness. He claims himself to be the Father of Darkness, propelled only by the greed of coveting the Light.

Jorgen

— a slave of Darkness. After a spurned love incident from centuries past, at a time when he lost himself to the power of Darkness, he dedicated his immortal life (a life harnessed using the power of Darkness) into a quest of finding the connection which would join the whole, the union of Light and Dark.

Nathan

— a 19-year-old boy, fresh out of highschool spending his time working hard as a dishwasher in his little town's tavern, hoping to earn enough money to care for his illing father and to escape town with his beloved Catherine.

The prologue was dedicated solely to Artros as it's written in the first-person perspective, his in particular. You can feel his thirst, his desire to possess the Light like that of a Vampire. The way he wanted to covet a 6-year-old Catherine to be wholly his is akin to that of a pedophile wanting badly to feed on his lust. Call me evil but I'm drawn to the darkness of such a desire that I was disappointed later to find out that he only wants to harness the power that Catherine was uniquely born with. He put Catherine under his domain (like devoiding her of dreams in her sleep) until she was able to break through from his control 10 years later (when he allowed her a single dream where he gets intimate).

As you can see, Catherine (now 16 years of age) is born with both the power of Light and Darkness, that Darkness users want to covet so badly. I'll leave the rest in the book.

Nathan may still be a boy but he has so much potential to be something more. He protected Catherine when she was attacked by 3 kids in an alley on her way to school when she was still 13 that they almost have become inseparable from each other since then if it were not for Artros' intervention. Catherine and Nathan have feelings for each other but they've never acted on it. And oh, Nathan is also very handsome.

Jorgen is a very old man (most slaves to the Darkness are, as they've roamed the earth for centuries) but with the power of Darkness in his control, he keeps a visage of his former self, that of a handsome man in his early thirties. There's something in a small town that draws him in and he wants to find out what, only to find a developing young beauty. He contemplated on possessing the power of this innocent girl who has no idea what she has but ended up protecting her instead when he realized that he was slowly falling for her.

Only a rose would make a man turn the shade of his desire.

Gosh, who won't feel giddy with all that? And I don't care if Catherine is still a minor and innocent, all the more making the story so prohibitly exciting. Okay, that was just me.

I like how the author kept the beauty of Catherine, until for later... until somebody else describes her, instead of an omniscient narrator describing her for the swelling effect that I hate. I love that I see her charm through the eyes of another.

Catherine is a name that exudes delicacy, innocence and beauty that one could almost never touch, as founded by Emily Bronte is her classic novel, Wuthering Heights. Erin Eveland used the name aptly as her character deserves it, with all the special treatment you could ever give to someone.

Just like Catherine, the book drew me into it, almost taking me whole with both my Light and Darkness. It's an enthralling story paranormal romance junkies would surely love.