Review - The Scent of Darkness by Margot Berwin (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Size: 240 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
Release Date: January 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0307907523
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC from Amazon Vine
Rating: 3/5 stars


I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. The concept sounded very intriguing to me. The writing was very sensual and deliberately paced. While I enjoyed the beginning of the book, I found the wrap up of the story to be bewildering and unsatisfying.

Evangeline is eighteen when her grandmother passes away and leaves her her house. In that house Evangeline finds a gift from her grandmother, a scent that will make Evangeline incredibly desirably to all who smell her. Evangeline quickly finds that this scent is more of a curse than a gift.

This book was an interesting read. It was very sensual, beautifully written and deliberately paced. Evageline struggles with choosing between her current lover, Gabriel (who she is comfortable with and believes she may be in love with) and Michael, a painter who calls to Evangeline's dark side and doesn’t seem to notice her smell.

I had a bit of trouble relating to the main character in this story. Evangeline doesn’t ever really seem to have a purpose or something that drives her. The reason behind her decisions is never really explained or understood...she just kind of drifts from one situation to the next.

Neither male character is all that engaging either. Gabriel is obsessed with Evageline but in a oddly distance way; especially as he is further and further drawn into his medical studies. Michael is just plain strange, and I never really engaged with him as a character at all.

Despite the intimacy between the characters they all felt strangely distant to me. About two-thirds of the way through the book I found I just didn’t really care what happened to any of them.

There isn’t much of a plot per say...basically Evageline is trying to figure out if she will sucumb to Micheal’s darkness or not. There is quite a bit of sex in this book, it’s not incredibly explicit but it is definitely there...so just something to be aware of.

I did enjoy the beautiful writing style of the book. I also enjoyed the perfume lore sprinkled throughout. The perfume lore was very intriguing and interesting to read about.

The ending was ridiculous. It doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. It’s one of these kind of endings that will make you scratch your head and think “Huh, well that’s totally inconsistent with what we were told happened in the rest of this story.” I really didn’t like it and pretty much thought it ruined the whole book.

Overall an okay read. The writing is very beautiful, the perfume lore throughout is intriguing, and the concept is interesting. However, the characters were distant and hard to relate to and there really wasn’t much of a plot. I also thought the ending left a lot to be desired. This book wasn’t a horrible read, but I can’t honestly say I would recommend it.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- 150+ Reading Challenge