Review of ‘Dark Promise’

Posted on July 19, 2016 Updated on July 15, 2016

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Rylie has it all; until a stranger appears at her door and informs her that she’s her birth mother, and that Rylie is a faery. And, not just any old faery, but one with powers greater than any other faery, powers that will be unleashed when she turns sixteen.

Rylie and her human parents find it all a little hard to believe until she wakes up on her sixteenth birthday with wings and pointed ears—and, with dark faeries trying to kidnap her and take her to the realm of the King of the Dark Faeries.

Things take an even darker turn when they eventually succeed and she’s taken to the faery world, where she finds herself betrothed to the son of the dark faery king, and is forced to make a promise she doesn’t want to keep in order to keep her family alive.

Dark Promise by Julia Crane and Talia Jager is a funny, dark, paranormal romance that, while written for a young adult audience, is actually pretty entertaining for even an old gray-beard like me. You can’t help but like Rylie and her sauciness, and even the faeries have a few redeeming graces. The book ends on something of a question mark, with Rylie caught between two worlds—three if you think of the dark and light faery realms as separate worlds—with an unknown future lying ahead of her. A sneaky sort of way to make sure you’re on the lookout for the sequel, but it’s a fun read, so I’ll not send the dark faeries after the authors.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review. I give it four stars.