Blackwood

Blackwood

Gwenda Bond

320 pages

Release: September 4, 2012

Publisher: Strange Chemistry

Source: Southern ARC Tours

★★★☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Occasionally in real life, it drives me a little nuts to not know what happened to the 114 original settlers of Roanoke Island.  The just up and disappeared without a trace and I need to know why, but I never will.  (I'm a history major, this is why it drives me a little nuts.  I'm sure the average person can sleep at night not knowing.)  Anyhoo, that's why I was excited to get my hands on Blackwood, a new novel about Roanoke Island and what happens when 114 of its citizens just up and disappear one night... and then return.

Miranda is a bit of a misfit in the town who doesn't have many friends because her ancestors were a little infamous.  Meanwhile, Phillips is from one of the most prestigious families in town, but since he developed the ability to hear the spirits of the island in his head - and they won't shut up - he exiled himself... until now.  Now he's paired up with Miranda trying to figure out why people have disappeared.

I really felt for Miranda.  She's such a sweet girl, but no one wants anything to do with her, including her father it seems who's the town drunk.  I was happy for her when Phillips came into her life - she finally had a friend who didn't care about her supposed ancestors, and she didn't really care about his either.  They worked great together and made a cute little couple, even though there wasn't much of a romance to be had in Blackwood.

While overall I really did enjoy Blackwood, there were a couple things that held me back.  I found the authors writing style to be unique.  I can't put my finger on it, but it took a bit longer with the text to grasp the plot than it usually does.  And by the end of the book I was ready for it to be over, although I really did enjoy the first two-thirds or so of the book.

Three stars!  While I found the majority of the book interesting and it held my attention, but the end I found my attention waning, just waiting to see what really happened.  That didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the book, though, so if you're a big historical fiction fan I think you'll really enjoy Blackwood.