Review: Innocent Darkness

Innocent Darkness by Suzanne Lazear

Innocent Darkness is a steampunk/fae series that is sure to be popular.  It reminded me of both Holly Black and Melissa Marr.  It’s not as well written, but it was a good story.  The main character, Noli, is a spirited young woman of sixteen who is not content to put herself into the box that society wants her to be in.  She wants to go to college and get a job, things that just are not done by women in the early 1900’s, or at least not by those of ‘good breeding’.   Noli gets herself in trouble and is sent to a horrible reform school.   She is beaten daily and mentally abused.  After a particularly bad week, she runs outside during the night of midsummer’s eve and climbs into a tree.  The tree is actually a Fairy tree with great magic within it.  When she reaches a good spot to hide, she cries and wishes to go ‘anyplace but here’ and is taken into the Otherworld, the world of the Fae.  There she meets a huntsman named Kevighn Silver who tells her he will help her get home.  He is lying, of course.  She has something special and the Otherworld needs it. Kevighn had actually been watching her and was about to make his move to seduce her into coming with him when she opened the gate herself.   She is smart enough to know not to trust him, but she has no choice.  Innocent Darkness was slow to start, but did get better.  Some will have no trouble getting into the book, but for some reason I just didn’t get interested until later in the story.   I will probably read the sequel and I will order both for my library.