Sweetest Darkness
Posted: November 1, 2024
Author: Leslie Lutz
Publisher: Peachtree
A teenage psychic is drawn deep into the honeycomb of an abandoned hotel—and into a cat-and-mouse game with a predatory entity—in this supernatural horror novel.
Everyone in Gypsum, Texas knows the Hotel Alvarado changes at night—especially Quinn. A teenage clairvoyant, he’s been having dreams about it… dreams that call him to its dark, abandoned halls. The hotel is a monument to the town’s more prosperous past, when celebrities flocked to the mineral spas and films were shot in the desert. The Great Depression killed all of that, it killed the Alvarado and frankly it killed Gypsum, too. Now, when the sun goes down, things no longer living stir deep within its creaking depths.
When Quinn braves the hotel’s darkness with his best friend June and unrequited love Selena, looking for answers, he gets only one: Ghosts aren’t the scariest thing lurking inside the Alvarado. He has been called by something worse: a predatory, inhuman entity that threatens to wipe Gypsum off the map. And wrongly—accidentally—he has let it out. It takes the shape of a handsome young man. It walks. It talks. It laughs. It can even make you laugh. But its appetite for death can never be sated. Quinn has always had the power to see the future… can he find the power to change it?
Sweetest Darkness is a fresh kind of thriller for new-adult readers. The story is pretty much the title itself—dark. First-person point of view, a linear plot and a lot of interesting characters are involved. The author’s writing approach is impressive.
However, the book drags at first. The introduction is way too lengthy and the storyline initially vague. Good thing it bounces back after that.
Some very interesting characters are introduced late in the story. They could have added a little spice earlier in the book.
Even so, I highly approve of the book’s authenticity and distinctiveness. There is a lot of realism even though it’s tagged as horror; it’s a supernatural genre to which readers will relate. Characters and dialogue convey authentic ways of dealing and conversing with one another. Feelings and mood are expressed well. The writing is precise and well thought out. Kudos!
– Kevin Velayo