Morningstar Paperback – April 20, 2012

The literary category of 'supernatural romance' has always been around, but has lately undergone resurgence with the popularization of the `Twilight' series. Morningstar falls into the wide realm of supernatural romance, but in all honesty to compare this book to the Twilight books would do it a terrible injustice. Nevertheless, putting Morningstar into terms that Twilight fans might relate to would open them up to a trilogy that is in my opinion, many, many leagues above Twilight. I can hear the outrage now, "There can't be anything better than Twilight! Edward/Bella/Jacob is the greatest love story ever told!!!!!!" This is a matter of opinion, and pointing out the flaws in someone's favorite book/trilogy is not the way to recommend a book/trilogy that they might also enjoy, so here goes nothing. *Slight Spoilers ahead*Morningstar tells the story of Dahlia, a twenty something woman making her way through life, plagued by nightmares of faceless angels, crushing darkness, and an overwhelming sense of imprisonment. One night, on a particularly boring work outing, Dahlia stumbles into a new group of friends who seem all too familiar to her, regardless of the fact that everything about them is a departure of her everyday life. They are rich, fun-loving, welcoming, and as the synopsis points out, `in short supply of morals'. They are also the first Fallen angels of Heaven posing as mortals, their leader Lucifer Morningstar. Dahlia is the reincarnation of Lucifer's one and only love, and instigator of the rebellion that got them all kicked out of Heaven in the first place.Even though her true nature isn't revealed to her until the end of the first book, Dahlia is basically worshipped by not only Lucifer, but also the rest of the Fallen, who pluck her from her droll life and drop her into a world of 1) magic, 2) money and 3) love.1) The magic and mystery of the world of Angels, Demons and even Fairies is painted vividly by the author, drawing upon the wealth of religious and mythological knowledge, fantastical descriptions and original, multi-faceted characters. What isn't drawn from religious or mythological texts is created wonderfully, my personal favorites being the use of Fairy Wine at the fey parties and the physical, intimate contact between Lucifer and Dahlia literally creating new and fantastic life from their surroundings.2) The money acquired by the Fallen in their many eons of being earth-bound allows them to tailor amazing experiences for Dahlia. She gets a huge kitchen to bake with them (I know, I wouldn't have believed it either, but I think the baking scene she has with the Fallen is one of my favorites) she gets an amazing party roof to combine her new friends with her old (mortal, but fey-blooded) friends, and even her own race track on the compound grounds.3) Lastly, the love story between Lucifer and Dahlia is, in one word, inspiring. Where Twilight plays on a lot of adolescent concepts of love (IE: infatuation, stalking, staring into each other's eyes for 40 pages) Morningstar paints a more adult and more `human' (IE: relatable and flawed) love between Lucifer and Dahlia. Where Lucifer just wants his eternal companion back, he has to conform to human standards of dating, affection, attraction and boundaries, empowering Dahlia more in a single book than Bella got in four.In summary, this book is not a supernatural romance for tweens or perhaps even teens. This is an adult's supernatural romance, both in content and sophistication. If you read Twilight or a similar book/trilogy and liked it, I would heavily recommend this book and its successors. If you wanted to like Twilight, but found it lacking as I did, I would also recommended Morningstar.

A lot of stories written by free lance author's are not that great. The normal free lance story is covered in grammatical errors and typos. The normal free lance story isn't researched, feels childish, tells to much, moves too quickly, and can't provide an interesting read because the reader is too caught up in how horrible the story is. Some published stories are even poorly written and just aren't readable."Morningstar" is a true relief for an intelligent reader. It is well written and catches the reader up in its vibrant characters Ab Ovo Usque Ad Mala, from beginning to end. Well detailed fight scenes are offset by adorable romantic scenes and characters that at times seem to just be old, cuddly, and violent children. It sounds like an oxymoron, but Darcy Town pulls off her story and characters well.I never felt like I was forcing myself to wade through clumps of information and then barely coherent dialogues. Instead, I became a part of the story as dialogue was interwoven with smooth description that produced a vibrant and alive world. The dangerous place that Darcy Town created might not be a world I would actually want to live in, but with the safety of her hand guiding me through, her world seemed almost more alive than the one I live in. I found the beauty hidden within her violent world fascinating.To live in mediocre world for an entire life time leaves a world dull, but too much violence can also cause a lethargy over the mind. Darcy Town balances her violence with the simplicity of every day occurrences and comedic characters that do not allow the brain to get used to anything.Overall, I would recommend this story to anyone that wants something truly well written to read. I found this story a delight to read, and I think most people that have an open mind would also like this story.

Ms. Town has guts, and, as they say, "guts is enough."As others have noted, the book could use a technical editor and it perhaps lacks the refinement of a more experienced writer. However, it does not lack for daring, brilliance or confidence. Having read the remaining two books in this "series" I can report that it is cohesive and well-plotted. There is no sense that the author picks a direction and then wings it for the destination (which is a pleasant change from many self-publishing or first-time authors). The work is almost entirely plot-driven but there is no sense of 2-d characters here and no sense of safety and security among either the protaginists or supporting crew. Everyone is in danger, although by the end of the third book, Ms. Town may have fallen too deeply for some of her creations. All puns intended.Caveats: not for the faint-of-heart, the deeply religious ("ban that book!") or theocratically challenged; also not for the chaste, socio-politically conservative or teeny-bopper set. Contains cursing, sex, drugs, demons, homosexuality, more cursing, torture, bondage and some cursing.It is not something you read twice, but it something you will want to read once.

I'm actually finding it rather hard to write an objective review. In a nutshell, another bunch of fallen angels living on earth after "The Fall". This time they are the good guys and the whole "Satan", "Hell" "temptation of Man" is a smear campaign from on-high. There is an interesting spin on the Creation theory, which I liked, I'm a huge fan of authors spinning their version of the best known piece of fiction ever written....Bible Fan-Fiction, love it!I downloaded this book from Amazon, it was free at the time, just as well. It isn't particularly long, but it still could have been edited of half its content. There are some scenes that are so drawn out you're reading them thinking "OK! Something must be going to happen otherwise why are we still here?" No reason, just no one bothered to tell the author that she should cut her ramblings as it was bordering on tedious. The back story of Dahlia and Lucien has some merit, some pretty good repartee back and forth, in fact the best part of this whole story for me was Lucien. Imagine the devil trying to get to grips with 21 century America after sitting in one spot mourning the loss of his love for aeons ."The hair makes you look not look like someone's great-grandfather and the shirt is edgy""I am Lucifer. I do not need to be made edgy".There is some really humourous parts to this book, as you can imagine all the Fallen are slightly crazy and this plays out well in the story. But I can't honestly say that I'm rushing to download book 2 and 3, unless they become free too? And Amazon rated it M (mature)? Really, language wise maybe but there isn't a single lemon in the whole book. Which for me is pretty strange, Dahlia and Lucien haven't been together for millenniums, when they finally are, no sex? Lucien keeps getting cockblocked by his Archangels and he allows it...something about this just doesn't sit right with me and as the story continue Lucien loses almost all his devilish creditability.If you can get this book for free then by all means download it a give it a go, but if not? I'd pass, there are much better fallen angels type fiction out there..

This book is poorly written in a pretentious and somewhat strange in its desperate attempt to be hip, and yet and yet I had to read it to the very end.It is dreadful though