The First Man Crush Monday Blog, Daemon Black!

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Let’s talk about “Man Crush Monday,” shall we.  I’m not sure that I can consistently complete a weekly blog where I talk about the best written, swoonable book guys, but I’m going to try.  I have to clarify here that these are my fictional crushes, and therefor not real, but I only have one real MCM and that is every day not just Mondays, which of course is the love of my life, my husband, Simon.  So back to the fiction, let’s start with Daemon Black.  Daemon is the bad boy example of a MCM.  He has the dark hair and the dark look with the penetrating eyes that has Katy ready to slap him and kiss him all at the same time.  Of course he can’t be bad boy 24/7, we start to see the cracks in his hard, muscled exterior pretty quickly as he gets closer to Katy while trying to protect his sister.  Daemon has all the great qualities of a bad boy, from the protective big brother, the rescuer from all things evil, and the smart mouth that has the reader giggling.  Daemon is MCM worthy, probably for more than just one week.    

I loved this book.  Correction, I LOVED THIS BOOK!  I know that a book is going to receive 5 stars on good reads, when I can’t put it down, that was Obsidian.  I started reading it Wednesday night and finished it Friday night with working eight hours, commuting about an hour, and still completing my wifely duties of cooking, but probably not cleaning (because I was reading).

Obsidian is about a girl named Katy that moves from sunny Florida to small town West Virginia after she and her mother could not move past her father’s death three years previous.  As she tries to find a grocery store, who shows up?  The “can’t believe he’s that hot” neighbor and his twin sister, but this book would be totally boring without a huge plot twist.  Within the first day of her arrival she sees the missing poster of a girl her age along with the creepy men in black that seem to lurk around the town and she knows that something is different about this town.  Katy also realizes that there is something different about her new neighbors.  She loves Dee, the sweet sister that is soon becoming Katy’s best friend, but she cannot stand Daemon, Dee’s cocky, arrogant, quick witted twin brother.  But she also can’t stop thinking about him either.  Well I can’t go into a lot of details because this book is so fun to read, you’ll just have to jump in and read it yourself to see what is going on, once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down, I hope you feel the same.

So, I have to say that I loved Katy, what an excellent lead character.  Her pain was so real from her father’s death, her unwillingness to start over in a new town and to make friends was tangible.  I hated the move for her.  I also loved Daemon, what an excellent antagonist.  I mean that in every sense of the word, he pushes Katy’s buttons from day one and his smart-alecky attitude and his arrogance make me love him even more.  Even though Katy has this anger in her heart against him, we all know that she is hot for him.  I also love that you can feel the tension between Katy and Daemon from the very beginning.  He wants to hate her, and she can’t stand him, but you can feel the yearning right under the current of the story. 

So, I have mention the great big pink elephant in the book, so beware: Spoiler Alert!!! 

Aliens, who doesn’t love a good sci-fi young adult novel?  I’m not sure, maybe idiots… just kidding, probably people who don’t like the paranormal, but that is not me.  I am always up for some hot alien action.  I loved how Armentrout invented what the alien’s true selves looked like.  I loved the picture of light vs. dark with the Luxen being the embodiment of light and the dark shadowy character of the Arum being the inky shadows lurking in the dark.  The Arum is the alien race that is out to kill the Luxen to take their powers.  Did I mention that Daemon and Dee along with their other alien friends have powers?  Of course I can’t leave our that the American government knows all about the Alien race and their seems to be more about the Department of Defense lurking in the background that I am sure we are going to hear a lot more about in books to come.

Well, not sure what else to say, except, this book is action packed, romance/hate filled and once you start, you can’t stop reading this book.  So, do it!  Keep Reading my Friends!