TOUCH OF DARKNESS

Author: Christina Dodd ISBN: 0451221842 8/2007 PARANORMAL Publisher: SIGNET ECLIPSE

Handsome, powerful Rurik Wilder battles darkness—the darkness without and the darkness within. He possesses the power to transform himself into a fierce bird of prey, and that gift caused death and destruction. At last he is offered the chance to redeem himself and break the evil pact that has held his family in thrall for centuries. Only one woman stands in his way—Tasya Hunnicutt, a writer determined to wreak revenge on the assassins who murdered her family. Assassins, it's been rumored, who have powers no human should ever possess...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

TOUCH OF DARKNESS is the second installment in Christina Dodd's new supernatural series and it's better than the first. TOUCH OF DARKNESS focuses more on the main characters than SCENT OF DARKNESS did, but at the same time it gives enough background information that if you haven't read the first one, you will still be able to follow the storyline.

The Darkness series has a common thread in that all of the characters are searching for their own piece of a puzzle that will lift a curse from their dying father, and each book is the story of one piece of the puzzle being discovered. While SCENT OF DARKNESS spent a lot of time revealing the family history and the reason for the curse, TOUCH OF DARKNESS touches on it only enough to help the reader understand the reason for the search for the icon.

TOUCH OF DARKNESS is a compelling story that combines a great search for a missing icon along with the story of two people learning what is truly important to them. Christina Dodd also does a great job of showing a slow decline in the Varinski family without letting that take over too much of the story.

There was only one little aspect of this story that bothered me. Tasya, the lead character, comes out of a cave-in with a relic in her hand, but it is immediately forgotten. She never looks at it, never wonders what it was, just nothing—until it's needed later in the story.

Barring that one tiny niggle of 'what the heck happened?', I very much enjoyed this book. When I put it down I looked forward to picking it up again—to the point I finished it in one day. I hope this pattern of getting better with each story is a trend to look forward to in the next Darkness installment.

April Luth