Feast: Harvest of Dreams – Merrie Destefano

 

Halloween is a bad time to return to the woods… Madeline MacFadden (“Mad Mac” to fans of her bestselling magical stories) spent blissful childhood summers in Ticonderoga Falls. And this is where she wants to be now that her adult life is falling apart. The dense surrounding forest holds many memories, some joyous, some tantalizingly only half-remembered. And she’s always believed there was something living in these wooded hills. But Maddie doesn’t remember the dark parts—and knows nothing of the mountain legend that holds the area’s terrified residents captive. She has no recollection of Ash, the strange and magnificent creature who once saved her life as a child, even though it is the destiny of his kind to prey upon humanity. And soon it will be the Harvest…the time to feast. Once again Maddie’s dreams—and her soul—are in grave danger. But magic runs deep during Harvest. Even a spinner of enchanted tales has wondrous powers of her own…

The attention to detail that this book starts with draws you in. From the first sentences, you start to try and work out who and what a “Darkwing” is. Just when you think you have them pegged and that you might get more than a glimpse, the chapter ends and the next chapter is from someone else’s view point. In some books that I have read that use this type of storytelling, I have got lost and given up before even halfway through but Ms Destefano manages to balance all her characters out so that there is no jarring effect and that the chapters flow seamlessly. I really liked the way that the bits and pieces of vampiric lore were sprinkled throughout the novel. Some of them as we have always believed i.e. that they need to be invited to be able to cross your threshold while others have been tweaked slightly. They don’t drink blood but they harvest dreams. This book firmly falls slap in the middle of the urban fantasy genre. The elements come together in bit and pieces to reveal the final picture in the last couple of chapters. It is a story of letting go and embracing. A story that reminds you to never stop dreaming A first class read