Rating: 3 stars
The strange, radiant looking Percy Parker and her gang of ghost busters (think Victorian Scooby Doo) are back in The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker, the sequel to The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber. Darkly Luminous takes place a few days after Percy and a group of six, known as The Guard, was able to stop the evil forces responsible for Jack the Ripper stalking London.
The shy and sometimes timid Percy has now found her calling as the seventh member of the Guard, as well as her one true love and soul mate with Prof. Alexi Rychman, the older, dashing, brooding, leader of the guard. After Percy has recovered from her injuries in battle, she and Alexi have a, "blink and you miss it" engagement, are married within days, and go off on their honeymoon to enjoy the delights of marital congress with one another.
It seems that all is not well within the Whisper-world and on the moral plane. The former head of the Guard, the spirit Beatrice Tipton, appears to the Guard to warn them that the ruler of the Darkness (ruler of the Whisper-world), wants revenge. The Guard must prepare for a major battle with The Darkness, who wants to rise up and destroy the land of living; especially Percy who holds the key, or rather is the key to stopping this grave travesty. Percy feels she must do whatever she can to make all the wrongs of the world right. Placing herself in danger, Percy may do more damage then good; including that of her marriage.
Leanna Renee Hieber's writing is so very beautiful. Darkly Luminous is a story you must take your time to read, savor and ingest, because there maybe some confusing passages. Whereas The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker was more focused on the character of Percy, in Darkly Luminous, we are given more insight on the Guard as individuals and their motivations.
Darkly Luminous has a great combination of supernatural, mysticism, and spiritualism. The religious aspect can be heavy at times, but again it does fit the overall tone of the story. The prologue is a bit disjointed, and the downtime from where Percy and Alexi are off on the honeymoon to those scenes with the Guard, as well as what is occurring in the Whisper-world may turn away some readers; but, this is needed because it is all about the buildup to the final battle that brings forth some big fireworks.
Leanna Renee Hieber is one author who has a very unique voice that is shown very well in Darkly Luminous. Not only does she have an intricate way with her world building, but her characters are so welcoming, not to mention seductive, mainly in the case of Alexi Rychman, who with one heated glance at his beloved Percy, makes a lover of romance literature like myself swoon in total glee.
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Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Leisure Books; Original edition (April 27, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-0843962970