The time has come to reveal the cover for Come, the Dark! You may have seen some placeholder covers for this one floating around the web before today, but finally you get to see the real deal and learn more about the book!
Come, the Dark
to be release Winter of 2013
“Whatever you do, fight.”
A Rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.
Rose was just a teenage girl carrying her father’s baby. A teenage girl who desperately wanted to escape. Womanhood in Salem, Massachusetts 1692 wasn’t what she had in mind.
As Rose attempts to save her newborn daughter, Anna, from both her father and the dark spirits that haunt her life, she is thrust from Georgia, 1962, into the start of Salem’s infamous witch trials, leaving her daughter hopelessly out of reach. Here, the townsfolk call her Abigail, while a strange man in the woods calls her by the name she gave herself as a child: Cordovae. A name she’s never shared with anyone else and no one else could have possibly known about.
All she wants is to find her way back to her daughter . . . but going back isn’t an option. Not until she faces certain death to stabilize the dark spirits that plague Salem before they possess the town. If she doesn’t move them in time, not only will human civilization be destroyed, but she’ll be forever trapped in this strange new place, unable to see her daughter ever again.
Even if she can complete the task in time to return home to save her daughter, there’s still one problem: she’s falling in love with a man who can’t return with her. Achieving her goals will leave her forced to choose between the only man who’s never betrayed her and a daughter she can’t quite remember but will never forget.
A heart-wrenching tale of a mother’s love for her daughter, this romantic paranormal fantasy underlines the depravity of both historical and modern society while capturing the essence of sacrifice and devotion.
All those signed up for release notification will automatically be entered to win a free copy of the book!
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Rebecca Hamilton writes Paranormal Fantasy, Horror, and Literary Fiction. She lives in Florida with her husband and three kids, along with multiple writing personalities that range from morbid to literary. Having a child diagnosed with autism has inspired her to illuminate the world through the eyes of characters who see things differently. Rebecca Hamilton is represented by the ever-more-amazing Rossano Trentin of TZLA.
You can find her debut novel, The Forever Girl, as well as Her Sweetest Downfall, a Forever Girl series novella at the folllowing:
Title: Her Sweetest Downfall
Author: Rebecca Hamilton
Rating: 5/5 stars
Ophelia’s been successful at hiding her true identity, until the mark of the serpent appears on her neck—a death sentence, should it be seen by anyone in her town. Hiding the mark might save her from falling victim to the witch hunts of her era, but the scorching sensation it carries can’t be ignored.
When mysterious Ethan is sent to collect her for a life of something more, she learns concealing the mark is the least of her concerns. She’s destined to do a new task—to join a dark, supernatural world and protect the future of people she may never meet.
What she doesn’t know—what she learns too late—is that her initiation won’t be complete until she kills the man who’s captured her heart. (from Goodreads)
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(Review of an ARC of Her Sweetest Downfall )
Reading this novella solidified Rebecca Hamilton on my list of top ten authors. With her debut novel, The Forever Girl: Sophia’s Journey, I had a feeling I’d enjoy reading more of Hamilton’s writing. I was right. Her Sweetest Downfall blew me away.
I was very pleased with the way this novella played out. For those who haven’t read book one in the series, I feel that they can still read this novella. I think that’s a great advantage Her Sweetest Downfall has. If a reader doesn’t have the time for a full length novel, but would like to check out Hamilton’s writing, this can be a great start.
The world of The Forever Girl is introduced here in a somewhat simpler way, which may even help in reading the more detailed explanations in The Forever Girl.
I am a reader who has read and loved The Forever Girl, so I already knew the overview of the creatures encountered here. I knew some of the story behind some of the characters as well…but the main character, Ophelia, I barely knew a thing about. I wanted to know. The Forever Girl made me want more. I was completely satisfied with what I learned. The reader follows along as she the mystery of her life, and destiny, unfolds in front of her eyes. Even though I know what her ultimate goal is, the journey to get there is filled with unexpected elements. I also enjoyed the new characters that came into play. Ethan was a great male lead. I admired his dedication to his job, even when his mission was threatened by the feelings of his heart.
One of the best things for me, was making connections to characters from The Forever Girl. I’m always a sucker for having “aha” moments. I’ll be reading a passage, then something clicks. It’s great when an author does Hamilton does this. In no way does it feel like she has altered or forced the story to connect in places. Some authors can attempt to make a connection work, but it just doesn’t seem natural for the story. This is not the case. I look forward to finding other connections like this throughout the series. When there is a series of seven books (plus however many novellas are to come out) it is probably difficult to create the interlocking points. From what I know this isn’t a series that follows just one main character, or even a timeline for that matter, so these points of connection will be necessary. I feel confident that I’ll have many more “aha” moments in future books.
By the end of this series, just like with this novella, Hamilton will have written a beautiful set of books. I feel confident in saying that.
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This book is scheduled to be released in July of 2012. Keep an eye out for it’s release SOON
Over the week I have been reading The Forever Girl: Sophia’s Journey by Rebecca Hamilton. This is the first in the Forever Girl series and I hope future titles are just as enjoyable a read as this first one was.
The book revolves around the character of Sophia. She is a twenty something college graduate living in a small town in Colorado. She lives alone in her deceased grandfather’s house, works at the town dinner as a waitress, and tries to get through each day having to deal with ever-present voices in her head.
There is no apparent cause or cure to these voices and Sophia just puts up with them. She makes occasional attempts to quiet the voices through positive energy rituals she performs, but it’s never a permanent escape. Did I mention that Sophia practices Wicca? Well she does. And this doesn’t help the town’s attitude toward her, especially Mrs. Franklin. She’s the leader of a church Sophia’s mother is part of and they are based out of Mrs. Franklin’s basement.
Sophia has only two friends, Lauren and Ivory. They don’t even know about the voices. She tries not to tell anyone. But eventually things start happening around her that she can’t ignore. One night out on the town with Ivory changes her life forever, and she is thrown into an underground world of supernatural beings and ancient secrets.
Will she ever find the source of the voices she hears? Can she trust the new friends who saved her life? Can she control her attraction for the mysterious Charles? Well, you’ll just have to read the book now, won’t you? That’s more of a summary that I normally give, but I have to try to sell the book to my readers somehow. It’s just that good.
Back to my reaction of the book. I bought this book after starting to follow the author, Rebecca Hamilton on twitter. I kept seeing tweets hyping up the book, quotes from other readers reactions, etc. I couldn’t ignore it and I’m glad I didn’t. Soon after, I bought the ebook and started reading it that night. I only read a chapter or so that night, but I didn’t want to put it down. If I weren’t reading another book at the time I might have finished half the book right then and there,
Even though there isn’t always action happening at every point in the book, (what story can be only action) the book hooked me in and didn’t want to let go. A key factor that kept me reading was that I didn’t know where the book was going to go next. I mean I could tell that in the next chapter the characters were going to drive here or do something over there, but normally I can predict a major plot point well in advance. I never had that discovery with this book. It was a great feeling that left me always surprised.
Another thing I really loved about this book was how Sophia saw the world. The description of her surroundings and the people she encounters were always detailed and filled with color, smells, and sounds. There are many books out there that are good, but they can still lack strength in this area of setting. Other books can have strong description but lack in other areas. There was a perfect balance between the plot’s forward motion and the development of the scene. It didn’t get in the way of knowing what was happening, even in the middle of fight scenes.
I didn’t want to mention too much above about the characters, but now that I think about it, I should mention briefly about the supernatural characters: There are vampires, shape-shifters, and witches. Before you think “oh, another of those books,” please trust in me saying “no, this isn’t just another of those books.” Yes, I may not have read anything like this yet, and yes, there might be something similar on the market awaiting me to read it, but who cares? I don’t. I loved this book and everything about it. I didn’t think a book with vampires would interest me at all, but I was proven wrong very quickly into starting. It may also help that the mythology Hamilton creates around these supernatural beings doesn’t call them vampires and puts a reason for their creation (originally to save the world) into the story.
There is also a love story that is in the forefront of the plot, but with me being a guy, I feel safe saying that the romance factor is completely bearable and enjoyable. Not only did I not want to throw up, I also want to see where the next book takes it. This interest is increased with the way the book ends, but I don’t want to spoil anything by getting into that.
To wrap this up. I WANT the next book to be released tomorrow if not today. I would buy it right away and not put it down. I trust that it will be just as good as The Forever Girl was. For now I will have to just enjoy the aftermath of reading this one. Luckily there is a novella set for release in the summer which I look forward to reading.
One last thing to mention since it’s new to me and I want to help spread the word. I went into reading this book thinking that it was a young adult book. I thought so because almost everything similar seems to be thrown into that genre. I didn’t put much thought into this. A genre is a genre, but it doesn’t much affect my reading of the book once I get into it. With this being said, there is a push for making the genre “New Adult” known to more readers. At first I was like what’s that? Is it necessary? I think it is. I think it will help readers not only feel more comfortable reading some of the book, instead of feeling like they are reading a book written for “kids” (aka, below their level of reading.) I am not an authority on the subject, but I do support its invention (if that’s the right word for it.) New Adult can be used in association with works aimed at an audience of 18-30 year olds. I am a little questioning toward the higher end of this age range. I never really thought about what is an “Adult” book age range before though since I’ve been reading what are probably “Adult” books since high school. For more on this and to discuss I’d like to direct you to a post from Hamilton: What Is New Adult?
For more on this book, links to buy it, and other reader reviews there is an easy to navigate page set up with everything you need on it. That can be found right here. To find Rebecca Hamilton on Twitter, she can be found under the Twitter name InkMuse.
For anything more info or places to find more about Hamilton or her book I’d be happy to try to answer any questions or comments.
Happy Reading (is that a good closing phrase? Probably too cheesy. Haha, it was worth a shot.)
