Death and The Girl Next Door by Darynda Jones – a Review

Death and the Girl Next Door is the first book in Darynda Jones’s new YA series, Darklight. 

Right from the start, we meet our heroine, Lorelei McAllister, and she turns out to be an awesome heroine.  Lorelei is 16 years old, and lives with her grandparents.  She spends all her time with her two best friends, Brooke (short for Brooklyn), and Glitch (don’t ask for his real name lol). It is their friendship that makes this such a fun story, as they were fun, and enjoyable to watch them together, not to mention a loyal friendship.  Darynda Jones does such a fabulous job creating all these characters in this book.    

Lorelei is different, and her two friends know this, as she has visions.  Her parents disappeared years ago, and Lorelei does not remember anything of that fateful day. Her grandparents and her friends are always supportive and try not to let her be alone.  Of course the friendship between the three of them is hilarious, with a lot of Jones’ normal humorous comments, that she has become known for in her Charley Davidson series. 

In the beginning, Lorelei notices that she is being stalked by someone from her school, that she has known since childhood, but now distant.  We meet Cameron, a tall good looking hunk, who seems to only glower at everyone.  Why is Cameron stalking Lorelei?

Enter Jared, the new boy in school, who mesmerizes Lorelei immediately.  Jared looks like a god, with almost every girl in school unable to not stare at him.  But he only looks at Lorelei.  The one thing you see right away is that Cameron, the stalker, and Jared the new kid on the block, seem to hate each other.  They are always fighting, and glowering at each other. 

I did find myself a bit confused very early on, with things going back and forth.  But once things settled down, and you got to know the characters, and especially more about Jared and Cameron, and why they hate each other, then the story flowed. But it took a few things to happen, and some dangerous to Lorelei, to find out what was happening, and why.  So not to spoil things for you, Jared is not human, and does have an ulterior motive for visiting Lorelei.  Cameron, who is human, but has certain abilities, knows everything about Jared, hence his defensiveness toward Lorelei. She then understands that Cameron was not stalking her, but instead he was following Jared, who was following her.  lol

There is no love triangle in DATGND, as Lorelei and Jared are the couple in this story.  Despite what she learns about him, having saved her early on,  Lorelei does trust her feelings for Jared.  She is confused, and trying to understand why he is here for her, and frankly at this point, so are we.  We learn the truth about Lorelei’s visions, and what they mean, but we come to really like Jared.  I wasn’t totally crazy about Cameron, as he was always fighting, glowering, and nasty, but Brooke seemed to be the one to have some control over Cameron. 

The last half of the book was very exciting, tense, with multiple twists, questions and surprising answers.  Lorelei learns about herself, her abilities, as well as everything about Jared.  At times, she finds herself scared, but she knows he would never hurt her, and they do become a great couple that you find yourself rooting for.  She is also a wonderful heroine, as she is tough, compassionate, loyal, and has a nice kick to keep both boys behaving.  lol

The truth is revealed in an awesome plot, which is surprising, and more wide ranging then thought, with so many people involved.  This totally was different, and now there will be so many questions that will still need to be answered.  Darynda Jones has created a wonderful story, with a super heroine, and some great secondary characters.  This was an excellent story, with an unlikely romance that despite its odds, have you rooting for them.  Lastly, I love Darynda Jones’ writing, as she has a way of creating a storyline that puts you into tense action scenes, and out of blue, you find yourself cracking up with her humorous witty comments.  An amazing talent!  I for one, will be staying with this series, and can’t wait for the next book, Death, Doom & Detention. 

LINKS TO ORDER
Amazon / Barnes and Noble / The Book Depository / Books a Million

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publicist