blurb
David Vandergraff wants to be a good man. He goes to church every Sunday, keeps his lawn trim and green, and loves his wife and kids more than anything. Unfortunately, being a dark wizard isn't a choice.
Eleven years ago, David's secret second family went missing. When his two lost children are finally found, he learns they suffered years of unthinkable abuse. Ready to make things right, David brings the kids home even though it could mean losing the wife he can’t imagine living without.
Keeping his life together becomes harder when the new children claim to be dark wizards. David believes they use this fantasy to cope with their trauma. Until, David's wife admits a secret of her own—she is a dark wizard too, as is David, and all of their children.
Now, David must parent two hurting children from a dark world he doesn’t understand and keep his family from falling apart. All while dealing with the realization that everyone he loves, including himself, may be evil.Add this to your Goodreads list:
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My review
Look guys - This novel is not a typical paranormal YA - sure there are teen characters in it but there are part of the of picture. picture of family and it's inside dynamics pulse the magical staff. Also This is not about light is good and dark is bad its about consonance of human behavior, choices that make you wonder how would you chose if you had been at the same situations....and I can tell you it isn't easy...so yes I didn't got those frustrations that I usually got in a typical YA.
Its speak of love and abuse at the space and time and yes.... Destruction! Yes too Much Destruction!
Magic is a complicated thing it really don't have a manual or guidelines each wizard has it talent base on the season which determine if he/she will be dark or light. The problem the the date and the hour also will differentiate between all this magic users and the path to destruction will be unique to his/her personality. ( really remind me the biblical theme about decisions and free will - "Then the LORD said to Cain, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.")
It is not the first book of Sharon Bayliss that I am reading and I fell in live with her writing from her first one. She is a proud Texan and write about those crazy Texan with lots of love and pride. In each book she want fail your 5 senses so you can feel as part of the story yourself.
I loved the talisman concept - A talismans protects your soul(and even it remind me about and it's n Pinocchio's official conscience Jiminy Cricket by Carlo Collodi, It's mean much more then just conscience . A true talisman is a person, not an object. You have to stay emotionally connected to your talisman, otherwise you can become unstable from the effects of the magic you're using.
DESTRUCTION brings us the story of David Vandergraff, his family, and the new world he is thrust into. When his son and daughter from an affair he had years ago are finally found, he couldn't be happier to finally have them. But things go from bad to worse as secrets are revealed and his world is completely turned upside down by the revelation that he's a dark wizard and so is his entire family. that he has 2 more children from an affair that he almost forgotten about. That he used to love this other woman but chose to stay with his wife and his talismans, but now discover that his denial led her to destructive path, that lead to her death and left 2 orphans,and this orphans his children too. He had to deal with his past - the one had erased from his mind by his wife, surprisingly to his own request and the one that he hide from his wife (cheating on her with her best friend Crystal, Evangeline and Xavier mother). He has also to deal with his attitude toward magic and his wife and her family refusal to do any magic, at same time his five children begin practicing it without permission.
Magic is dangerous and being dark wizards makes it even more so. It has a toll and it can be a steep one and as has his family star to practice dark magic, thing start to fall apart and spiral down very quickly.
Jude, Patrick, and Emmy are the children David has with Amanda, and Evangeline and Xavier are the children he had with Crystal. Evangeline and Xavier suffered terrible abuse by their stepfather and have been traumatized by it. The children are traumatized, having been abused by their stepfather (actually, were sexually assaulted - Repeatedly by their stepfather, they were physically marked each time with a permission(?) of their mother), whom the authorities tell David are dead, so he just has to take them home and try to deal with 2 traumatized kids. When these two groups meet for the first time, they immediately dislike each other.
They stay to themselves and are very protective of each other. The animosity that Jude, Patrick, and Emmy have for Evangeline and Xavier is mostly on their mother's behalf. They are angry by what their father did and they take it out on Evangeline and Xavier. Patrick was my favorite one.
David! Is the main character and actually, I wanted to shake him at times. I had difficult time to handle his lying, hiding, and cowardice, even while I could lay the blame on his addled brain (which his wife messed with years before), but I really hard time to forgave him his incompetence to handle rape and abuse as more serious matters. It doesn't make him very likable when he cares so much more for the rapist than the victim. But as I said before I really don't know how what would I do if I was in his shoes, It is really easy to judge when you are the outsider. I also, didn't like how Amanda chose to react to this dark situation in a way I felt that hypocrisy can describe her behavior better - she really annoyed me, with her holier-than-thou attitude and her tendency to conveniently ignore what she had done, while giving guilt-trips to others. It’s part of the imperfect nature of this character, sure, but almost nobody called her on her it. All right, David cheated on her and had two kids in her back, which is totally hard thing to swallow, but in the early days of their marriage, she was the one who made a all those tasteless decisions for him(but again who am I to judge). What really irritate me was her part as in the “non-practitioners” that spent years saying that their magic would have bad consequences and they’d better not practice… but she was easily break her “vow”, while constantly blaming others who does the same.
But overall there no matter what you think about the characters and there choices you can't stay indifference to the plot!
I read it without stopping and need to know more so ....Sure I am in for the next Book!
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