Shrouded in Darkness by H.D. Thomson

Margot Davenport’s life has been turned upside down. She divorced her husband two years ago and lost her corporate attorney job soon after, but none of that compares to the heartbreak she’s dealing with now – the death of her brother, Johnny, who she adored.

Jake Preston doesn’t have long to live, thanks to an experiment gone wrong. He needs to get his hands on the antidote, but the last known person to have it is his friend and co-worker, Johnny Davenport. Unaware of Johnny’s death, Jake shows up at Margot’s front door looking for him, and a place to stay. When he learns about Johnny’s car accident, which he’s pretty sure wasn’t an accident at all, he’s even more convinced that the cure he’s looking for can be found somewhere in Margot’s house.

Maybe it was the way-too-much alcohol she’d been drinking to deaden the emotional pain of her brother’s death, or the fact that Jake is a living, breathing connection to her beloved Johnny, whatever the reason, Margot reluctantly agrees to rent Jake a room for the couple of weeks he'll be in town. Odd things start happening around the house, things she can’t explain and when she starts to think that maybe Johnny’s ghost has come to visit, she realizes she’s really losing it. But when Malcolm, her ex-husband, shows up desperate to find some file Johnny had been working on, Margot is certain there’s much more going on than meets the eye, and that Jake isn’t who, or what, he claims to be.

Shrouded in Darkness is book one of the The Shrouded Series, and I'm glad I was given the opportunity to read it. Jake Preston is the kind of hero I can love – tormented, honorable and strong, yet vulnerable and desperate, but I had a tough time connecting with Margot or sympathizing with her over the things she was going through. The story was good and kept me guessing, wondering who the bad guys were and what they were hiding. I don't want to spoil the story for you, so I can't go into a lot of detail, but I do want to mention that, in my opinion, Shrouded in Darkness felt more sci-fi than paranormal, though not futuristic or techy.

The bottom line - If you enjoy mysteries with a twist you might want to check this one out. The writing isn't without flaws, but Shrouded in Darkness is an entertaining read, and left me wanting to know more about the dark world Jake Preston and Johnny Davenport had found themselves caught up in.

My thanks to the author, H.D. Thomson, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.25/5 stars

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Blurb...

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest--to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past then she could have ever imagined.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with the Salem witch hunts. Even as a young girl in elementary school, I read books, watched movies and loved listening to stories about the witch trials and the events leading up to them. So when I saw The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, it goes without saying that I just had to have it.

We first meet our heroine, Connie Goodwin, as she’s about to answer the final question in her qualifying exam at Harvard; “Would you please provide the committee with a succinct and considered history of witchcraft in North America?” Now, Connie is an incredibly intelligent woman, trying to impress a panel of equally intelligent – if not more so - Harvard professors with her knowledge of American Colonial history. The dialog and accompanying narrative reflected the importance of her answer, and for a brief time I found myself kind of lost in the “educated” explanation. However, once we get past that part in the story, which didn’t last very long, I easily fell into the flow and the feel of Katherine Howe’s writing.

I’ve found that sometimes when an author tackles a fictional retelling of factual historical events, it can end up boring and text bookish for the reader. I think it takes skill to stay true to the details without putting the reader to sleep. Thankfully, Katherine Howe pulled this off beautifully.

I was quickly pulled into the story and felt very much a part of Connie’s journey to find Deliverance Dane’s missing Physick Book. The glimpses into the past we were given as we moved between 1991 and the late 17th and early 18th centuries flowed very well, and I really feel like the author did a brilliant job of taking us from one time period to another, as we moved from chapter to chapter.

Along the way, Connie meets Sam, and a romance develops between them. I really enjoyed that aspect of the story because Sam was a great character, but I wish we could have seen a little more relationship development between them, so that I could have felt the depth of her emotions for him during certain parts of the book. However, that said, I thought the author did an excellent job of making his a character someone I cared about even though we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with him. And a note for those who might be interested, while we know that Connie and Sam do have a sexual relationship, there was nothing sexually explicit in this book.

Overall, this was a great story that I couldn’t put down. It had me imaging what it would be like if I had lived during this time period, and answered questions I’ve long had. And I even shed a few tears over what it must have been like for the families of the accused.

I’d love to get my hands on something else along the lines of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, and will be keeping my eyes open for more by this author.

Click here to purchase The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane from Amazon