AUTHOR: Eden Maguire
PUB DATE: March 2010
SOURCE: Thanks to Sourcebooks for sending me an ARC of this book.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Not alive. Not dead. Somewhere in between lie the Beautiful Dead.
Something strange is happening at Ellerton High. Phoenix is the fourth teenager to die within a year. His street-fight stabbing follows the deaths of Jonas, Summer, and Arizona in equally strange and sudden circumstances. Rumors of ghosts and strange happenings rip through the small community as it comes to terms with shock and loss.
Darina, Phoenix’s grief-stricken girlfriend, is on the verge. She can’t escape her intense heartache or the impossible apparitions of those that are meant to be dead. And all the while the sound of beating wings echos inside her head…
And then one day Phoenix appears to Darina. He tells her that she must help Jonas—the first of the four to die—right the wrong linked to his death. Only with her help can Jonas finally rest in peace. Will love conquer death? And if it does, can Darina set it free?
MY THOUGHTS:
Thanks to Paul at Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an advanced readers copy and for allowing me to be part of the blog tour for this book.
This is the first book in a four books series. The idea behind this series is that within a year four students from Ellerton High have been killed and they are Arizona, Summer, Phoenix and Jonas. Each book will tell the story of how each one was killed.
In the first book we are introduced to Darina right away and learn that her boyfriend Phoenix has just be killed. She is heart broken, grief stricken and trying to come to turns with the death. One of the things Darina does is go for drives to think and on this particular day she ends up wondering around a field and she hears a banging door in the wind. She goes off in search of it and stumbles upon an deserted house and barn.
She goes up to the barn and looks in. Its your typical old barn but in the middle is a group of people standing around in a circle. She spots her boyfriend Phoenix and they quickly spots the three other kids who were killed this past year. When the door bangs again she makes a run for it before being spotted.
Although it doesn’t take her long to go back to the spot again to find out what is going on and wondering if what she saw was real. Is what Darina saw real?
I really enjoyed reading this book and I have to admit it was a quick read at 271 pages. At the end of the book the first chapter of book two which sounds just as exciting and I am dying to read that one when it comes out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Eden Maguire lives part of the time in the US, where she enjoys the big skies and ice-capped mountains of Colorado.
An abandoned farmstead two hours south west of Denver gave her the perfect setting for The Beautiful Dead. “It was as if time had stood still,” she says of her first chance visit to the ranch. “The kitchen still had the old rocking-chair and iron stove, the ancient barn door really did blow open and shut in the wind.”
It was here that the seed for a series of paranormal romance mysteries was sown. Eden Maguire’s lifelong admiration for Emily Bronte’s timeless classic, Wuthering Heights, ties in with her fascination for the dark side of life and informs her portrayal of the restless, romantic souls in The Beautiful Dead.
Away from her interest in the supernatural and the solitary pursuit of writing fiction, Eden’s life is lived as much as possible in the outdoors, thanks to ranch-owning friends in Colorado. She says, “Put me on a horse and point me towards a mountain – that’s where I find my own personal paradise.”
COVERS OF UPCOMING BOOKS:
Book 2 is Arizona
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