Rating: 5🌈
What a stunner! Sara Dobie Bauer’s recent release, Light from the Grave is such fabulous cornucopia of paranormal elements of powerful magical families, beautifully crafted characters textured with layers of darkness, grief, and death, set into the mossy, old southern landscape of Charleston, South Carolina. Bauer’s plot is a thriller of horrifying beauty.
I was immediately entranced by the characters, the raw emotion that the author keeps pulling out of her scenes and how she can carry those heart wrenching memories over into a new situation that becomes an entirely different experience. One that may have humorous overtones.
Everyone here, each character, from childhood to adulthood, has experienced gut wrenching loss. And that pain, that overwhelming grief continues to haunt them deeply in various ways.
Dylan Quinn’s lost his foster mother and he’s unable to process her loss. It’s not the first or last deep grief he’s had to deal with but it’s the most devastating.
Bauer’s nightmarish descriptions of Dylan’s pain feels so real, the emotional turmoil and endless loop of mourning raw and believable. The power of the memories doesn’t have to be magical to make us feel what it’s putting him through.
More subtle, and deadlier is Keller Rex. Keller too has deeply suffered, and ,in turn , caused unbelievable losses. He’s been sent to bring Dylan to the Zaine ancestral home in Charleston. What type of magical creature he is should be left to the story as it’s so much a part of the powerful narrative.
But it’s the growth and revelations that Kelley’s presence and the death of Vivian Zayne start to bring about in Dylan that’s brings the darkness and magic to this story.
I just wanted to jump in and start reading it again after I finished to see what I’d missed the first time around.
There’s battles, zombies, crazy families, familiars (wish more had been done with the bobcats), and quite a few bittersweet moments. And a fierce young girl, Raven, who needs more page time, as she’s a great character on her own.
Actually, Light from the Grave by Sara Dobie Bauer is bursting with darkly detailed and fabulous scenes that make a reader want more than was left on the page. More of the characters in that army, more backgrounds, just more. Because what we did get was so imaginative and marvelous that we naturally needed more. Of everything and everyone.
Yes, this beautifully written and plotted book is a must read. It’s dark fiction and romance, just a reminder. So if grief, dying and death isn’t your thing, this might not be either.
It’s definitely mine.
Buy Link:
Blurb:
I’m what nightmares are made of, but I’m not sure who’s more dangerous: him or me.
In the world of witches, Keller Rex is a legendary monster—a dark sorcerer with a gift for suffering. He has long been the protector of the Zayne coven and their ancestral home in Charleston, South Carolina. When the family matriarch, Vivian Zayne, dies under mysterious circumstances, he is tasked with finding the only person who can open her sealed Book of Shadows: the son no one knew she had.
Dylan Quinn has never bothered to figure out why cats follow him everywhere, but it’s been that way for as long as he can remember. After the unexpected passing of his adoptive mother, he had to make a new home for himself in small-town Ohio. Things have been quiet ever since, but lately, there are strange voices in his dreams and a sense of being watched.
When a striking Southern gent appears in town, Dylan welcomes the distraction. Keller is handsome and charming, but Dylan can tell there’s something else, something eerie about him. And he discovers he’s right, as Keller goes from being Dylan’s seducer… to his abductor.
Now back in Charleston, Dylan’s newfound family is shocked when it’s discovered his magical affinity is for death itself. Despite his fears, he’ll need to learn to control his terrifying powers in order to open the Zayne Book of Shadows. He also needs to keep his coven safe, and time is running out. The estate’s protective wards expire on Halloween, and power-hungry witches from all over are ready to pounce.
While Dylan’s awakening darkness threatens to overwhelm him, Keller finds himself confronted by feelings he thought long dead. Keller will do anything to protect his young necromancer and open Vivian’s Book of Shadows, but the Zaynes are in for a surprise when Dylan resurrects someone he shouldn’t.
• Publisher: Carnation Books (October 24, 2023)
• Publication date: October 24, 2023
• Print length: 352 pages
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