Happy publication day to Lucy Holden and Dusky Dahlia, the fifth book in the Nightgarden Saga. I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of this book from Lucy, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it! If you haven’t read the rest of the series, I highly recommend it, especially before you read on, because there are spoilers ahead!
You can read my review of Red Magnolia, the first book in the series, HERE. As an added bonus, Red Magnolia is free to download on Amazon from today until 20th January, so make sure you don’t miss out.
BLURB:
Magical. Mystical. Unimaginable.
Harper’s dreams are strange. But her reality is about to become stranger than any dream.
Nobody will believe her. Harper isn’t sure she believes it herself. Until the waterpaths take her somewhere she never thought she’d be again – to someone she thought lost to her forever. Now she has more than one unlikely miracle to explain, and no way to prove her story.
Worse, Harper knows the only way to keep them all safe is for her to travel the waterpaths again. Antoine is just as determined to stop her trying.
Deepwater has a new vampire. One who seems willing to help Harper do what she must. But nobody knows quite where she comes from, nor what happened to her Maker. Antoine doesn’t trust her.
Harper doesn’t know who to trust. But she knows someone who does.
She just has to work out how to get back to her.
PURCHASE LINKS:
REVIEW:
Regular readers will know that I absolutely love this series, and the first four books all featured in my top reads of 2021. After reading and reviewing Red Magnolia, I decided that I would save the rest of this fantastic series to review en masse once I had read them all. However, I then had the opportunity to join Lucy Holden’s Street team and I couldn’t resist.
Each book in the series starts with a letter written by Harper to her twin sister, Tessa. Throughout the series, these have served as a handy refresher and link to the previous book, but the letter that starts Dusky Dahlia sounded so desperately lonely that it made me feel quite sad.
As much as I have loved each book in the series, Dusky Dahlia is my favourite so far. Where there has been a lot of world building and action up until now, this book sees something of a change of pace. It is so full of emotion that it really touched my heart. The night garden and water garden felt so real, I could practically see and smell them, hear the leaves rustling in the breeze.
Although I am no stranger to books of a paranormal nature, Lucy’s use of ancient cultures that are, to me at least, less familiar than your average vampire origin tale has been absolutely fascinating. I can’t get enough of the different stories and origins that are being introduced in each book.
Each book in this series has such a gorgeous cover, each of which links beautifully to the night garden that Harper is growing throughout the series, and I can’t wait to see them all lined up together.
Forget Edward Cullen, or whichever Salvatore brother stole your heart, Antoine Marigny is the number one vampire in my heart. I hope you love him just as much as I do.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lucy Holden is a pseudonym for Paula Constant, Random House published author of Sahara and Slow Journey South and indie author of the Visigoths of Spain historical fiction series. The Nightgarden Saga is Paula’s first foray into YA/NA paranormal romance.
Lucy Holden is Paula’s alter ego. She is a romantic tragic and has a deep fascination for all things supernatural. Starting with Anne Rice as a teenager, Paula has read her way through the vampire panoply. Her passion for the supernatural is so ingrained, she can recite whole scenes from The Vampire Diaries.
Her favourite thing in the world to do is sit on Cable Beach at midnight under a full moon with a glass of wine, something she gets to do almost every month not that she lives in the tropical North West town of Broome, Australia.
While off work with a broken leg, Paula wrote the entire Nightgarden Saga and now has plans for two related series set in the same world.
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