Everything I hoped for and more
My Initial Reaction…
I fell in love with Pandora back in Crimson Night and I’ve been anxiously awaiting this next installment of her story ever since. I was lucky enough to do a beta read and still snag an eARC! *giddy dance* All Hallows Night lived up to my incredibly high expectations – it made me laugh my ass of and cry my eyes out. And that, my friends, is a sign of a truly great book!
The Characters…
It’s so hard to talk about the characters because I feel like everything I want to say is spoiler territory. So much happened in book one – Crimson Night – and I don’t want to do series spoilers this early in the series. So I’m going to limit myself to a description of Pandora here and hope you’ll trust me when I say that ALL the characters are wonderfully written. I love them or love to hate them or they’re so complex I can’t decide if I should worry that I love them or not! Seriously, these characters make All Hallows Night.
Geez, I freakin’ love Pandora! She’s a demon (Nephalim) – she’s shared her body with a Lust demon her whole life and has a recent new addition that causing her all kinds of trouble – and yet she’s so human. Unlike the other demons around her, she embraces the human part of her and even though it makes her vulnerable it also makes her feel. She’s so loving and caring – the things she’s done over the centuries (we get some glimpses of her long past in All Hallows Night) made me fall in love with her all over again. But- don’t let her emotions fool you. She’s no weakling. This chic can kick some serious butt and the action in All Hallow Night lets us really see that side of her too. Add in some of the developments from the last book (which I’m trying ridiculously hard not to spoil here) and she’s one incredible package. Read it so you know what I mean!
The Story…
Again, there’s so much going on that feeds off of book 1 and makes avoiding series spoilers seriously hard. I have to say, though, that it’s one of the things I’m loving most about this series – it really truly is one big story. It all matters. You can’t just jump in midway because the mystery and complexity is building in such fabulous ways that you need to suck in every minute.
The basic structure of All Hallows Night surrounds Zombie trouble. Pandora and her carnival have been called to Mexico to find out about mysterious corpses being left all over the place – something zombies don’t typically do. See zombies are so different in this world – nothing like you read about typically. They are organized and typically keep out of the supernatural battles. I loved the way Marie wrote them and the action they produce is incredible.
The best part of the plot though is the mystery. I really never knew what to think exactly – every time I thought I knew what was up I was wrong and had to guess again. From developments with the Zombies, the Order, Grace, Mysterious guy I can’t tell you about… it’s non-stop twists and turns that keep you on your feet! It never slowed down for me – not even my second time through. That’s saying something folks!
Concluding Sentiments…
All I can really say is that this series is brilliant. The characters are so incredibly well written and the mystery is killing me. If you haven’t started it yet, you really need to. Just sayin’ :)
I received this book for free from Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
*This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.*
