The Dark Divine - Bree Despain

So I read Bree Despain's The Dark Divine back in May and for some reason it totally escaped being blogged about. Shame on me because I LOVED this book.

Grace Divine is a pastor's daughter and lives her life following the rules and making sure she does things portray her and her family in a good light. When an old friend, Daniel, returns to town Grace is warned by her brother, Jude, to stay away from him. Grace struggles with the request because not only does Daniel seem to need help, but she wants to find out what happened that night Daniel left and Jude came home all bloody. Will Grace find the answers she's looking for? Will her brother forgive her for doing the right thing when she helps someone that is in desperate need of it?

I have had this book sitting on my bookshelf almost since it was released. I have no idea why it took my so long to read it, but I wish it hadn't because I loved this book. Grace was a very determined character and I liked being in her head. She wasn't whiney and she was always trying to do the right thing, but a lot of the time it did seem as if the right thing for her went against what everyone else was telling her.

Daniel was kind of a jerk at first but the more you got to know him, the more you realized it was more of a defense mechanism. As for Jude, I kind of disliked him from the get-go. I don't know what it was, but the whole prodigal son thing didn't work for me and I felt justified in my dislike of him by the end. I think it was just because he seemed too good at the beginning.

I also loved this cover. I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but that is the initial reason I bought this book. It jumped out to me in the bookstore and the shade of purple is just pretty. Kudos to the person who picked this as the cover.

If you haven't read The Dark Divine yet, I urge you to add this book to your TBR pile.

This was book #6 in the 2010 Debut Author's Challenge.