Dangerous Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

4/5 Stars








Summary from goodreads:

A new series returns to the world of Beautiful Creatures. Some loves are cursed...others are dangerous.

Ridley Duchannes will be the first to tell you that she's a bad girl. She's Dark. She's a Siren. You can never trust her, or even yourself when she's around. Lucky for her, Wesley "Link" Lincoln can never seem to remember that; quarter Incubus or not, his heart is Mortal when it comes to Ridley. When Link heads to New York City to start a music career, Ridley goes along for the ride-and she has her own reasons. As if leaving small-town Gatlin for the big city, trying to form a band, and surviving life with a partially reformed Siren isn't hard enough already, Link soon learns he has a price on his head that no Caster or Mortal can ever pay.

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthors of Beautiful Creatures, are back and casting another magical spell. Their signature mixture of mystery, suspense, and romance, along with a dash of fun and danger, will pull fans in and leave them begging for more.

This book was such a lovely reminder of why I loved The Caster Chronicles so much! To be honest, I didn’t have very high expectations for this spinoff, but Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl sure proved that they could pull it off. 

It was such a joy going back to these wonderful characters. Everyone’s favorite Siren, Ridley Duchannes is back and she’s as fabulous as ever. In this book, we get to see Ridley struggle with her Dark nature and try to be a better person than the selfish manipulator everyone expects her to be. I loved that we got to see glimpses of Ridley’s life before she was Claimed and how her family slammed the door in her face when she needed them the most. I never really empathized with her in The Caster Chronicles, but now I completely understand how she felt and how the dreadful events in her past led her to do everything that she’s done. 

Link is the same precious goofball that we know and love and his songwriting hasn’t gotten any better. (In fact, his new songs are even more hilariously terrible than before.) We also got to briefly see Ethan, Lena, Liv and John (oh how I’ve missed them!) in a bittersweet scene when they, along with Link and Rid, spend their final night together before they all leave Gatlin and go their separate ways. 

Dangerous Creatures introduces a few new characters as well. There’s the notorious Lennox Gates, whom I was surprised to discover was not the series’ main antagonist. I don’t know how I feel about him yet because while I found him quite annoying most of the time, (especially when he calls Ridley “Little Siren.” Blekh!) I also liked that he seemed to care deeply about Ridley and even Necro. I’m very interested in knowing more about his family and I really hope we get to meet his sister later in the series. There are also Link’s bandmates: Floyd, who was nothing but irritating the entire book, Necro, who is as awesome as her name, and the mysterious Darkborn, Sampson. I still don’t really understand what a Darkborn is (we only got a vague idea of where they came from, but that’s it,) so I’m hoping it’ll be explained in the next book. 

I really enjoyed seeing the Caster world outside of Gatlin. I'd always thought Mortal New York was exciting, but Caster New York sure set the bar pretty high. I felt that New York was just the perfect place to focus on Link and Ridley's tumultuous relationship. Link and Ridley may seem like the worst paired couple in existence, but you find yourself rooting for them all the same. They both clearly love each other, but things aren't always that simple, are they? Their chaotic lives and their menacing enemies, who are out for revenge, are pulling them apart, but they still continue to fight to make things work out between them. The ongoing struggle to fix this relationship is one I'll never get tired of (though I'm not sure I can say the same for Link and Rid.) 

The plot is nothing special, but it's enjoyable enough and it holds your interest until the book ends in a shocking cliffhanger that makes sure the wait for the next book is torture. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, why do you hate us so much? Why? 

This entertaining read is a great beginning of a very promising series that I'm sure is going to have a special place in my heart. If you liked The Caster Chronicles, then rest assured you'll love this.

Notes:

-I really loved how the chapter titles were all names of famous songs or albums.

-Nerd Warrior Nick? Anyone else think of Nerdfighters? 

-There was this scene in the book with when Ridley and Nox are talking about love and then Rid says, "Love is an open door." My inner Frozen fangirl squeeled!

Read this as an e-book. Unfortunately not yet available in Egypt but you can always special order it from any bookstore.