Darkling

Witches are coming back. Get ready for witches to just own 2018. And Brooklyn Ray's DARKLING has to be on your list.

I had so much fun reading this little novella. I first saw it on Twitter and when I saw it on Netgalley, I just had to request it because I was very interested by it. It didn't disappoint, it was superb and fun and I love the dark-ish feeling and the magic and the relationship between all characters it had.

Ryder, the main character, is such an intriguing character!!!! He comes from a line of necromancers but also a line of Fire magic, so his powers are super rare. He is coming to terms about his dark magic of a necromancer going wild and in order to get them under control, he has to do this ceremony where he has to die and come back to life. Also he is finally starting a relationship with his best friend, Liam, after crushing on him for two years. I adored their relationship and it was great and their support for each other made me go AWWW. More, more more please!

It was such an enjoyable read and I was like "I want to do a Halloween book recs 2018" post already to include this one but I'm sure I will include it in something else as well before Halloween lmao. It was such a good ride and I so want to know more about the characters and not just the main ones, but also the supporting characters that appeared in this story. I hope they get their books? That'd be fabulous.

A quick supernatural read that does well with paralleling contradicting abilities to fully fuse two halves of oneself into a deeper more meaningful whole.

This book take off right from the beginning into a world of magic and the internal struggle that is blooming to the surface as our main character tries to come to terms with who he is and how to handle that change while also allowing himself to be happy with the boy he loves.

It’s an interesting set up and offers a snapshot into a world that has many possibilities for expansion it’s almost sad that it’s a bit of a novella in length because I would have loved to see this story play out longer to not only see more of the main story, but also go deeper into the connections and relationships in the coven as well as Ryder’s family and their gifts.

**thank you to netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

TW: for bloodletting/cutting/consumming of blood/brief death of animal but it comes back! Liam does cut Ryder to help him deal with his dark magic so just be aware of that going in.
wow just.....wow. Let me just say this author hadn't been on my radar before, at all but once again twitter swoops in with the good recs and I was intrigued enough to check it out and I am so pleased I did because did i mention wow???

It hooked me from page one and never let up for a second right until the end (sobs why isn't there more???) This is such a beautifully intense read. We have our witch who's also a necromancer and both sides of him are warring. throw in his friend who he's in love with and then ohhhhh boy the darkness inside Ryder is unravelling and we have a cocktail for everything to just go so wroooong.

Brooklyn Ray did an excellent job of slowly feeding us new details and revealing secrets (there are still some secrets i think we don't know yet so i'm hoping this means more books in this world ) bit by bit juust enough to keep us hooked and boy was i hooked.

The relationship between Liam and Ryder is just so...intense...yes my word i had to stop reading every few minutes because I was like *insert sweating intensifies gif* but also so sweet? and steamy. Honestly i felt like these sex scenes were so beautifully written. I'm in awe right now.

Also Ryder;s circle is so multifaceted, hell alll the secondary characters were well crafted IMO and i want a book for them alllll! It was also pretty refreshing to see the different familars each witch had. There was a cat, owl, fox, mouse, someone even had a snake! I loved that.

Did i mention more than one queer relationship!! Not just the mains either, secondaries too. m/m and f/f relationships. :D And our main guy Ryder is trans and at no time is a big deal made of that.
I loved this dark, delicious book and i can't wait to see more of it :)

I really enjoyed this book. As a Wiccan, anything to do with magic catches my eye. Thankfully it did because I really enjoyed the read!

The writing was great. The only thing I had a hard time with was pronoun usage. But it becomes a bit clearer toward the end. More about gender identification. Once I wrapped my head around that, I was good!

Reviewed by Jen of the GothicMoms Review Team