Review: The Dark Light by Sara Walsh

Title: The Dark Light
Author: Sara Walsh
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Age Group: Young Adult
Category: Fantasy/Romance
Release date: August 28th, 2012
Pages: 496 (ARC)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Source: Publisher
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Mysterious lights have flickered above Crownsville for as long as Mia can remember. And as far as she’s concerned, that’s about the only interesting thing to happen in her small town.

That is, until Sol arrives. Mia’s not one to fall for just any guy, but she can’t get Sol—or the brilliant tattoo on his back—out of her mind.

Then Mia’s brother goes missing, and Mia’s convinced that Sol knows more than he’s sharing. But getting closer to Sol means reevaluating everything Mia once believed to be true. Because Sol’s not who Mia thought he was—and neither is she.

Mia has never given the lights that appear around her small town a second glance.  No one did.  They were unusual, but they've just been there for as long as anyone can remember.  The only time she sees them as anything more than lights is when she watches her little brother disappear into them in front of her eyes.  The only person she can trust to help her is someone that she barely knows--a mysterious newcomer named Sol.

The Dark Light is a delicious and highly addictive romantic fantasy.  Readers will quickly fall in love with the plot as well as the characters.  When Mia realizes that she and Sol are the only ones who know what really happened to her brother, she takes it into her own hands to bring him back.  With the help of a few clues and her mother's old necklace, Mia steps into a different world called Brakaland.  Sol, feeling obligated to protect her, follows and quickly becomes more than just a stranger as they fight their way across the land to get to the person that matters most to her.

While reading, I never once felt that the story was dragging on, and that's a little hard to believe with how long the book was.  There's a lot of information, action and twists that help quicken the story.  I was intrigued by Sol from the very start, and it's easy to say that my admiration for him only grew the more I read.  Mia is also very easy to relate to, and you can feel her determination throughout the entire story.  Though the mystery is unveiled rather slowly, a lot of action is involved, which seemed to tide my curiosity over.

Overall, The Dark Light wasn't what I expected it to be.  It was SO much more.  This author surely knows how to create a captivating fantasy novel.  Brakaland was built fantastically, with which I found no visible flaws.  The creatures that inhabited the land, the variety of places, the idea that anyone could be passing back and forth from their world to ours was fascinating.  Every twist in this story was shocking, yet believable, and left me wanting more.