Happy Thursday! We are one day away from the weekend, and I will definitely say I am ready!Â
Today I’m going to be reviewing A Darkly Beating Heart for the blog tour, and the lovely people behind this tour will be giving away 3 copies of this book! Trust me when I say you want to enter!
A Darkly Beating Heart by Lindsay Smith
Published by Macmillan on October 25th 2016
Genres: Asia, Historical, Self-Mutilation, Social Themes, Time Travel, Young Adult Fiction
Source: ARC from Publisher
Buy the Book ⢠Goodreads
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
A troubled girl confronts her personal demons in this time-travel thriller alternating between present day and 19th century Japan.
No one knows how to handle Reiko. She is full of hatred; all she can think about is how to best hurt herself and those people closest to her. After a failed suicide attempt at her home in Seattle, Reiko's parents send her to spend the summer with family in Japan, hoping she will learn to control her emotions. But while visiting Kuramagi, a historic village preserved to reflect the nineteenth-century Edo period, Reiko finds herself slipping backward in time into the nineteenth-century life of Miyu, a young woman even more vengeful than Reiko herself. Reiko loves escaping into Miyu's life . . . until she discovers Kuramagi's dark secret and must face down Miyu's demons as well as her own.
A Darkly Beating Heart is a dark and twisted read. I expected from the synopsis that the feel would be dark, but I don’t think I expected it to be as dark as it is. There was also a creepy factor to the whole book that I just really obsessed over.
Reiko isn’t really a main character I think I was meant to love, but she is definitely intriguing and I had to see what was fueling her anger and her need for revenge. I found the way her story unfolded to be really fascinating. So many things about her life and her backstory were such a mystery, and what came at the end I wasn’t really expecting.
The side characters weren’t any that I was particularly attached too, though I did like Kenji. I do wish he had had more of a story so I could have gotten to know more about him and not just how Reiko saw him.
The writing is my favorite part of this entire book. I don’t really read a lot of books with the time travel element in it…I just think it takes a special type of writer to make it work…Smith made it work. I love the way it was introduced mysteriously and how the story unfolded over the second half of the book. I really enjoyed the build up and finding out more about Miyu’s story and how it affected Reiko.
I was also really enamored by the setting. I could easily see and feel like I was visiting Kuramagi with Reiko, and experiencing the history of the village.
I do like how everything unfolded at the end and how everything that Reiko learned in the village affected her. I did have an issue with the ending feeling too neatly tied up, but that was really my only complaint overall.
I would recommend this one, especially if you are into dark and twisty.
About Lindsay Smith
Lindsay Smith is the author of Cold War-era espionage novels Sekret and Skandal, as well as the fantasy novel Dreamstrider. She writes on foreign affairs and lives in Washington, DC.
3 Finished Copies
US Only, Tour Hosted
Good Luck â¥
i love that this author did time travel so well! That makes a huge difference and takes special writing talent and research. Thanks for the post today!
Super excited for this book. Time travel can be difficult to do properly, but so glad to hear that she did an awesome job with it! Thanks for hosting!
The contest asks people to leave a comment for the tour host. It doesn’t ask anything in particular. Is “Sounds intriguing!” so offensive???
I love that this book is about time travel!!! I just love dark reads and super excited see more about this author. ð
I read Sekret and was so impressed with Smith’s writing. When I saw this book, I was instantly interest in it. This review makes me want to read it more!
This has been on my TBR list for like the longest time, and I absolutely love, love, love the cover!
Awesome review Crystal ð So glad you enjoyed this one a bunch. <3 It seems pretty amazing. I'm pretty curious about it ð