A Brush of Darkness (Abby Sinclair, Book 1) Mass Market Paperback – January 25, 2011

The Story
There is a girl named Abby Sinclair.. during the day she runs a regular used bookstore, at night she manages a magical marketplace. She is a touchstone to a faery princess from the OtherWorld. When people in Abbys world start disappearing the dark myseterious incubus Brystion shows up asking abby for help to find the missing. Off goes the race to save the missing!

Thoughts
This book has an INSANE amount of vivid imagery. Pang truly is a natural story teller. it was hard to put the book down I just wanted to know what was going on! Pang adds in poetry like a master. While once in a while the story got a little consuming because she hints at convoluted things not really being clear, but it just added to the charm of the story. I so badly wanted to figure what where the story was going, it fueled the pace of this book. I can't wait till the next to see where the author takes the characters. She left several story threads to pick up in the next book. This was unique and visually stunning! Great UF book!

I thoroughly enjoyed " A Brush of Darkness". It is a great addition to the urban paranormal genre.

There is a plethora of supernatural characters which I love. Part of why I enjoy this genre so much is to be led into a magical world. There area a cast of charecters we'd expect and some we wouldn't, everything from from incubi to angels, to demons, vampires and werewolves with a horny unicorn thrown in for the fun of it. The world building is fresh.

As is the love story between our heroine and our hero. I highly reccomend this -with two disclaimers, there is rape involved in the storyline - as well as highly charged consentual sex.

This was a good start to a new urban fantasy. This book was entertaining and action-packed. The plot had a nice mysterious feel, in addition to plenty of humor. There were plenty of times where I LMFAO. This book was a fun and fast read.

The story had a cache of preternaturals, which included unicorns, fae, vampires, angels, werewolves, demons and plain ole humans. The story was contemporary, creative and original. Unfortunately, this story was overly contemporary at times, with farfetched subplots and too many fantastical beings and situations that all accumulated into a huge pile of asininities and absurdities. Almost like the author had an urban fantasy checklist and was trying to cover all her basis.

I often found Abby to be too-stupid-to-live and her refusal to see the obvious wore on my patience; although, she always managed to come to her senses in the end.

While I did enjoy this book, I won't be reaching for the next book in this series immediately. At this time, this series serves as my go to "B list books" and "filler books", to be read in-between the waiting periods for my favorite authors' releases. Nevertheless, there is still yet hope that the next installment will knock my socks off.

I recommend this book to fellow dark urban fantasy readers and I will read the next book A Sliver of Shadow.
I also recommend:
Dark Time: Mortal Path Book One
Succubus Blues
The Shadow Reader (A Shadow Reader Novel)
Highborn (The Dark Redemption Series)
Shotgun Sorceress

A Brush of Darkness caught my eye not only because it is primarily about fae, which, of course, I love and can't get nearly enough of. Thus far, in the wonderful world of urban fantasy, I've only seen Fae done really well twice: The Fever series and Shadow Reader. The rest of the series were lack luster at best. While I wouldn't say this book is Fever quality, I would place it third on my Best-Fae-Series-of-All-Times list. I'd give it a solid four stars, and they could easily quality for more if it were not for a few foolish decisions the main character makes.

The book center around a girl named Abby who acts as a Touchstone for a powerful Fae. In this world, the Fae have issues travelling between the mortal realms and our own. They can only do so during certain times, unless they acquire a mortal Touchstone. They form a link between a mortal and themselves, and the mortal can then act as a link between their worlds. They can travel any time, and many of the innate weakness of their particular type of Fae can be counteracted (a werewolf with a Touchstone would no longer be forced to change under the full moon, and could choose to change any time he want to). In exchange for agreeing to a seven year contract with the Fae, the mortal then stops aging (for the term of the contract) and sometimes gains other boons or artifacts.

Abby's past is a mystery, but we know she was in a terrible accident, and now has a metal plate in her skull, walks with a limp, and suffers from seizures. It was shortly after her accident that she contracted to Moira, a powerful Fae woman. She now lives in this woman's book shop, and manages her mortal affairs. This is where the story starts, and it quickly gets very intense. Abby is approached by an Brystion, an Incubus, whose sister is missing. He wishes to gain Moira's assistance finding her, however Moira has been absent, visiting the Fae lands for months, so Abby chooses to help him in her stead. As it turns out, Brystion's sister's disappearance is just the tip of the iceberg. Other Succubus's have been disappearing, and no one knows where Abby's benefactor is, so they fear she may also be a victim. The mystery here is fascinating, and full of enough twists and turns to keep even the most astute reader guessing. I found the whole story to be very imaginative, and exciting.

Abby's character is a lot of fun. She's blunt, honest, loyal, and has a strong sense of responsibility. She tries to do her duty, and stand by her commitments even when facing insurmountable odds. Her past makes her somewhat fragile, but she compensates for it by being bold in other ways. She's the sort that speaks her mind, without a ton of thought to the consequences, which every once in a while made me think she was being a bit bitchy, but for the most part I really liked her character.

Brystion or Ion seems like classic sex fiend Incubus, but the author did something really special with him. On the outside you think he's all about sex, commitment phobic, selfish to the core, only looking out for himself. However there's a whole other layer to his character. His race is looked down on by the other supernaturals - he's seen as a whore, a dream eater, and considered trash. What makes his character so special under his bravado, he is profoundly insecure. He actually believes all the epitaphs people have thrown on him over the years. He does not see himself as anything more than a parasite. He feels profoundly unworthy of love or even care. There were several times in the books I actually got teary eyed as I learned more about Ion and started to see things from his perspective.

There's one more character worth mentioning here, and that's Phineas - the horny miniature unicorn. He's HILARIOUS. In between frolicking around in Abby's underwear drawer, and making amorous advances on hedgehogs, he manages to practically steal the show in the book. He's pivotal in getting Abby out of more than one bind, and he does it with such flair and humor, you are guaranteed to fall as in love with him as I did.

The romance between Abby and Brystion is delicious, and I'm happy to report that this book is 100% love-triangle free (the second book does introduce a triangle though). We get a lot of ridiculously steam incubus sensuality, and a good deal of beauty and pain as these two fragile, flawed, insecure people come together. Because of what Brystion is, and how he sees himself, you have the sense that his role in Abby's life is temporal, but that doesn't detract from the building love between the two, if anything it makes it feel even more vital, because it feels as if they could be ripped apart at any moment.

The story is told in the first person from Abby's POV. It takes place mostly in the world we know, although if you are jonesing for some time in the Fae lands, you'll get your fix in A Sliver of Shadow (book 2). The author employs a lot of cultural references - in some ways reminiscent of the humor in the Iron Druid series. Very geeky and hilarious. Lots of star wars references and the like.

This story would have easily been a solid five stars for me, but Abby did a few hair brained things that made me want to smack her. I can't stand it when protagonists do things that fly in the face of common sense. There's one moment in particular where the villain tells Abby to meet him somewhere alone (of course), or ELSE bad things will happen to people she cares about (of course). And what do you think she did? If you guessed she went to the bad, scary place alone and offered herself up like a proverbial lamb to the slaughter that you'd be right. Le sigh. Doesn't these characters read books or watch TV? It NEVER turns out right when the character goes alone. Tell someone, make a plan, make it seem like you are going alone, but have you buddies waiting on the sidelines ready to break out a can of woop ass on that bad guys.

This is a fantastic book, and an even better series if you are looking for a great fae story.