My Darling Arrow by Saffron A. Kent

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Audio Review: My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels #1) by Saffron A Kent, Narrated by Jason Clarke & Sarah Puckett

My Darling Arrow moves beyond the cheesiness of a fairytale and dives into love in all it's painful glory. Kent shows off the darker side of life. From unpredictable to hard to resist, it's a long road. Salem and Arrow will make a mess of emotions with all the drama. Clarke and Puckett intensify the burn with their razor sharp delivery of these two broken people. From hello to goodbye, Kent bleeds the heart dry and leaves a lasting mark on the soul. Not easy to love, but hard to forget.



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It's a long-term goal of mine to read all of Anna Katherine Green's mysteries and this one has been sitting on my shelves for awhile now.  

AKG was, and is, considered a strong mystery writer, but as is true of most every writer, her work is sometimes better than others.  This was one of the ones that wasn't quite so great, though still an enjoyable read.  I imagine Green was going for what we'd call today a police procedural, as the murderer isn't kept a mystery; the reader is made privy to the information the same time Inspector Gryce first voices his suspicions.  I'm not a procedural fan, as it contains less puzzle than I prefer.  There was also a plot twist that was either poorly hidden, or I'm too jaded, but I called it from the first.  Her reveal of it, though, would have knocked my socks off if I hadn't guessed early on.

Overall, I enjoyed it and look forward to acquiring more of her work.  

Having a retold folktale that specifically names the culture/people it is taking the tale from easily allows anyone reading to find the source material, but it's not always easy for an outsider to see the problems in a retelling. Thank goodness for Debbie Reese. Check out her posts on McDermott's Arrow to the Sun and it's problems here.

I really liked the imagery in the book. The illustrations are very striking, but there are many problems with the story (like the fact that McDermott straight made up a ceremonial dance).

THE LEGENDARY THRILLER THAT CREATED DR HANNIBAL LECTER

Will Graham was a brilliant profiler of criminals for the FBI - until he suffered terrible injuries in the process of capturing Dr Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter.

Years later, a serial killer nicknamed 'the Tooth Fairy' is massacring entire families each full moon. With the FBI desperate for progress, Will reluctantly agrees to consult. But he soon realises that he alone can't crack the case; he needs the help of the only mind even better than his own at understanding the mentalities of psychopaths.

The mind of Hannibal Lecter.

But Hannibal is playing his own twisted game from the asylum for the criminally insane. Will isn't alone in getting advice from the cannibal. So is the Tooth Fairy - the man haunted by visions of the murderous Red Dragon…

Well I wanted my scary/spooky read this month and I got it.

Not sure there is much to say about this book other than I understand now why it was such a hype and still is.  It is one hell of a a dark and twisted book and while at times I wanted to hide or throw up I loved every bit of it.

The writing I had to get used to, all the different POV were a bit confusing at once but caught on pretty fast.   Though for a book that advertised “THRILLER THAT CREATED DR HANNIBAL LECTER” we don’t get that much of him. I assume that will change in future books.

I liked Will Graham for the most part and his thinking and his head-space, what I could not really connect to was his relationship with Molly . It just felt off and odd.

Dolarhyde, oh he was a whole other category off messed up, even as we go into his really messed up childhood I didn’t know if that should be an excuse or not. But its clear early on that he has some severe issues and as the story goes on it just gets worse and we follow him coming undone more and more.

I have to say though as we get to the end or close to, I was like well that was sort of anti-climatic but then we get the nice surprise …. Oh wow

That also goes for the very end which pretty much sets us up for more Lecter, or at least I’m hoping to.

It goes without saying that this book is not for people with a weak stomach or lighthearted, and should come with all the trigger warnings there are. That being said the books is hauntingly sick minded and twisted but I loved it. Few minor things but nothing really that jumps out, the things I had a problem with the most was the POVs but that’s about it.

I rate it 4.5★

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