This Brilliant Darkness (A Dark Contemporary Fantasy) [Kindle Edition]

Red Tash (Author)

Book Description

A brooding monster.  A quirky professor.  A small Indiana town with a soul of its own.

Imagine if the writers of Northern Exposure sat down with Stephen King and decided to craft a dark fantasy thriller starring absent-minded academians, every day goofballs, and a dark fantasy creature for good measure.  Pondering big picture questions like "Why am I here?" and "Does Love Conquer All?" has never been so fun.

That's THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS, the top-rated dark fantasy debut novel by the author of TROLL OR DERBY, Red Tash.  

Nothing is as it seems to be, and no one behaves in ways characters are "supposed" to act.  How will it end?  It's anyone's guess, in a book that keeps you turning pages, racing to find out what will happen next.

Christine Grace finds her predictable scholarly life comforting, if a bit boring.  Her live-in boyfriend presses her for marriage, but she's too philosophically inclined to take an interest.  So, really, why does she suddenly start imagining things in the window's reflection?  Is time truly starting and stopping all around her, or is she inexplicably cracking up?

Greachin is an age-old being so tortured by his own karmic cycle that he no longer knows how to connect, except to identify potential threats through the cosmic ripples of space.  When he zeroes in on Christine Grace, he experiences second thoughts for the first time in millenia.  Will he go through with his grisly plan of murder and destruction?

And what of these other characters--an aging physicist of ill-repute, a stubborn monk who takes his vow of silence too far, and a time-shifting star visible only from Bloomington?  What a tangled web we weave, when monsters practice to deceive.  Dive into This Brilliant Darkness, and follow the journeys of these characters, from Britain to the Heartland, from January's snowfall to Halloween's costumed festivities.

THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS is a smart, karmic mystery populated by lovable brainy characters.  Climb on, strap in, and hold tight.

Readers are saying:

"This is a fast-paced, exciting book that keeps you guessing until the very end. With an eclectic cast of characters, time travel and a karmic mystery, how can you go wrong?" ~Zombie Bedtime Stories author Thea Gregory

"By midnight, I had not put the book down, and had no intention of putting it down. At 12:15am, my fourteen-year-old son stumbled out to get a drink of water. "You're still up?" he asked. "Go to bed." I looked up from my Nook, smiled, and said, "Not on your life, dude. Not until this ends." ~Librarian Amy Marshall

"The way the author weaves fantasy, humor, science fiction, and mystery is, for lack of a better word, brilliant. I read the entire thing with admiration/envy, taking notes and thinking 'THIS is how you write a novel.'  Remember when Scream blew the horror world away by actually using technology in a realistic way? Well here's blogging and online forums and long distance cyber friendships, honestly depicting the way we live in the 21st century." ~Poet Christina Grey

AN OFFICIAL JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB MUST READ  

"The atmosphere of this book, so hard to simply label horror or paranormal...how about simply...A GREAT READ, is the true star. Ms. Tash so finely weaves a path of intrigue, terror, humor and suspense, that the reader is taken with each character, so very finely drawn.  THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS is that rare book that one truly does not want to end!!  When it does...next question is 'What else by Red Tash can I get my hands on? QUICK!!!'"~ Rick Friedman

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A compelling, fully nuanced modern fairytale, full of pop reference & philosophical allusions. Smart, thrilling, funny & full of great characters tangled in the kind of small-town webs Stephen King revels in. One of the best new writers I've read in years.~Axel Howerton, Living Dead at Ziegfreidt & Roy, Hot Sinatra

From the Author

Second edition updates, 3/2013: After much consideration, the author has taken the advice of several readers and added the name of each narrator to the beginning of each respective chapter.  Although this may not amount to a significant change to readers who have previously enjoyed the book, RT hopes this subtle adjustment clarifies for future readers of This Brilliant Darkness just whose turn is whose.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 379 KB
• Print Length: 234 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005LSNB2A
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #404,953 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars I seem to be in the minority on "This Brilliant Darkness" January 15, 2012

By Sara Meehan

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Red Tash's debut novel gets good reviews on Amazon. Four and a half stars by 21 reviewers, in fact. The description promises "a fast-paced thrilling tale of karmic struggle and suspense, magical supernatural beings, physics and sci-fi fantasy." Seemingly right up my alley.

The story is loosely focused on Christine, a university professor, as she begins experiencing bizarre, inexplicable phenomena -- hallucinations, time warps, electronic devices giving her messages, etc. Her live-in boyfriend, Tom, and her new officemate/love-triangle-third, Richard, get caught up in the weirdness. There's also a monk, a teacher's assistant, a mysterious student and a slew of ancillary characters.

Then there's the villain of the story, Greachin, who has to be read to be appreciated. Greachin is the highlight of the novel: He's part alien, part demon, part Christine's worst nightmare. From the book:

He would come at her with legends born of fear, generations of death, plague, mourning, loss, confusion. She would buckle like a stalk of dry grain in a storm. She might fight, but he'd convince her that she was overwhelmed by something evil and holy, if not by his physical prowess than with his gruesome logic.

For reasons never clearly explained, Greachin is determined to destroy Christine. He lies in wait, stalking her, growing stronger. There is some back story for him involving a creature named Fengrid, but what I really wanted to know was, why Christine? Why is she so important to this apparently immortal force for evil? (For that matter, what was the point of the side plot with the monk who had visions of Christine and Greachin?) Few of the obvious questions in this book are answered.

Structurally, the book is all over the place. The timeline jumps back and forth, and while that may tie into the plot point of time travel, it made keeping track of the sequence of events challenging. It doesn't help that the point of view switches from character to character frequently, and it wasn't always obvious which character was serving as narrator. Having finished the novel, I'm still not clear on why the author chose to offer so many points of view.

On her website, Tash says, "It's a fast-moving story told from multiple points of view, and it doesn't dumb itself down, so you need to be a top-notch reader to really enjoy this one, I think." I'll take exception to the implication that I'm not a top-notch reader because I didn't like her book, but Tash's statement is helpful because she makes it clear her authorial choices were intentional. As such, I would expect her subsequent work (she's planning a sequel) to have a similar style. I doubt I'll pick up any more of her books.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The series begins in "This Brilliant Darkness" November 7, 2011

By Kevin Tipple VINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

Bloomington, Indiana should be nothing more than a quiet college town. It had been until a strange flashing star began to light up the night as well as daytime sky. A star that can't be seen anywhere else on Earth. Strange events are also happening in a local wooded area. All too soon it becomes very personal to Christine Grace because something very strange is happening to her as well.

She could be losing her mind.

That would be the easy explanation.

Maybe the strange events are happening because Christine has been targeted by some sort of dark creature known as the "Greachin." Maybe the strange events are because she has allies and just does not know it just yet. While Christine struggles to hold on to her sanity, the creature grows stronger day by day making it harder for her to survive.

Filled with interesting characters, constant shifting between character viewpoints, and discussions of religion and science, this story billed as a "dark urban fantasy" moves forward at a rapid pace. Not all questions are answered to completely tie everything off, but one wonders how the series can move forward based on how this book ended. As very clearly noted in the book description, this book is not intended for anyone other than adult readers. That means there is adult language, drinking, and other character activities that may offend some readers.

Ordinarily this is not the kind of book I would read. Based on my tastes and preferences this would be classified as a horror novel and not something I would touch. However, I contracted to read it and proof it for typos after the author was informed by a reader there were "tons" of spelling errors. There was not at all in the version I recently read and proofed. In fact, I found far fewer than many books I have read recently released from the major publishing houses.

Because I enjoyed the read, despite being the totally wrong audience for it, I broke my long standing policy of not reviewing works I had any part in because I only proofed this read for misspelled words. No other editing services were provided or asked for regarding this very interesting and enjoyable book.

Material supplied, as noted above, by the author for spelling review purposes.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2011

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast-paced fantasy, lots of mystery . . . September 22, 2011

By C. Turner

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The quick, snappy dialogue moves the story fabulously, and with the many change of POV's (each chapter), the story kept building in momentum into a tangled web of darkness, mystery, and paranormal terror. The fast pace was refreshing and I kept on reading, wondering what was going to happen to Christine and how all the characters twined into the bigger picture. Because of the dark mystery created, I was looking forward to the resolutions. Who or what is Greachin? Why did the entity choose Christine? How does Richard's deceased wife fit into all this?--for what purpose? There is a hint of more SF going on than seems apparent with the emergence of the flat sun, and the paranormal activities around its sudden appearance, not to mention the very strange and beguiling creature Greachin and its macabre habits--very cool SFF concept, especially when we get into the head of the 'thing'! Still, a lot of underlying threads left lingering in the reader's mind which demand a sequel. The main character, Christine, is energetic and likeable. She is always trying to find out what's happening to her and the people around her. She fights . . . right to the bitter end.

More About the Author

Red Tash is a journalist-turned-novelist of dark fantasy for readers of all ages. Monsters, SciFi, wizards, trolls, fairies, and roller derby lightly sautéed in a Southern/Midwestern sauce hand-canned from her mama's recipes await you in her pantry of readerly delights. Y'all come, anytime.