The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart
Author: Leanna Renee Hieber
Series: Magic Most Foul (#2)
Publisher: Sourcebooks
How Received: publisher copy
My review of Darker Still.
I'm coming for you.
The whispers haunt her dreams and fill her waking hours with dread. Something odd is happening. Something...unnatural.
Possession of the living. Resurrection of the dead. And Natalie Stewart is caught right in the middle. Jonathon, the one person she thought she could trust, has become a double agent for the dark side. But he plays the part so well, Natalie has to wonder just how much he's really acting.
She can't even see what it is she's fighting. But the cost of losing her heart, her sanity...her soul.
The thing I loved best about Darker Still - besides the ever-increasing stakes and thrills - was the relationship between the characters. Jonathon and Natalie knew that this was instalove, knew it probably shouldn't be, and decided to screw social norms - but be careful about it. They poked fun at the trope that so irritates me and then managed to pull of their own in a way that I didn't feel screwed over.
And like Darker Still, The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart failed to disappoint in the area of relationships - and I don't just mean the one between Natalie and Jonathan. I loved the family dynamics of Evelyn and Natalie and her father and their adjustment to an ever-changing family life. I loved the friendship dynamics between Rachel and Natalie and Natalie and Maggie, and how each needed the other in different ways. I loved the relationship between Jonathan and Natalie and how Natalie worries about their relationship, questions it, questions them, and yet at the end of the day-
well, no spoilers. You'll have to see for yourself if they survive all of their trials and tribulations.
I loved the suspense throughout the story as well; I wasn't certain what was going to happen from moment to moment involving Jonathan's double agenting and Rachel's powers and Evelyn's actions. There was only one predictable occurrence, which is foreshadowed so heavily that even Natalie knows it (and yet she does nothing about it?), but it didn't take away from the rest of the story.
All in all, it was a fairly fast-paced paranormal romp that I rather enjoyed.
Overall Rating & Final Comments: 9/10. A few quirks here and there that irritated me, but an overall great book.
Have any of you read this or Darker Still?