DNF Review – Darkborn (Darkborn, Book 1) by Alison Sinclair (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 304 pages
Publisher: Roc
Release Date: May 4, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0451463005
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Darkborn Trilogy
Source: Swapped through Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

“For the Darkborn, sunlight kills. For the Lightborn, darkness is fatal. Living under a centuries-old curse, the Darkborn and the Lightborn share the city of Minhorne, coexisting in an uneasy equilibrium but never interacting.

When Darkborn physician Balthasar Hearne finds a pregnant fugitive on his doorstep just before sunrise, he has no choice but to take her in. Tercelle Amberley’s betrothed is a powerful Darkborn nobleman, but her illicit lover came to her through the daytime. When she gives birth to twin boys, they can see, something unheard of among the Darkborn.

When men come for the boys, Balthasar is saved by the intervention of his Lightborn neighbor-and healed by the hands of his wife, Telmaine. Soon he finds himself drawn deeper into political intrigue and magical attacks, while Telmaine must confront a power she can no longer keep sheathed in gloves, a power she neither wants nor can control.”

I have had the Darkborn trilogy on my bookshelf to read for quite awhile. I’ve actually started it a couple times and just couldn’t get past the first couple chapters. I was determined to read at least the first 100 pages this time to give it a fair shot….I still didn’t like it much.

Let’s start with the things I thought were interesting. I think the main draw for this story is the unique world. Sinclair has created a world with two different species of human: one that will burn in the light and lives in the dark and one that will unravel in darkness but thrives in the light. What is interesting is they live side by side (literally) in the same cities. There is a council of representatives that meet occasionally to make sure both species are coexisting okay. Despite that each species has their own forms of government and generally lead completely separate lives from each other. This whole concept is a bit unbelievable but still kind of neat.

Okay, so then why did I stop reading it? Well there are a lot of readings. First of all the characters names were tough to keep track of; two of the main heroines have names that are very close and I was constantly getting confused about who was doing what. Secondly the book jumps around between POVs a lot and it just wasn’t working; it was jarring when we switched POV and not at all well done. Thirdly our main heroine, Telmaine, is married to sweet and scientific minded man who adores her and whom she adores. She has two lovely children and is generally happy. Then when another mage enters the story (an older man) she is suddenly drawn to him. Now I didn’t get to the point where she actually cheats on her wonderful husband but that’s kind of where the story seemed to be going and it was just…yucky.

Less specifically I didn’t like that the story didn’t flow well and was very hard to engage with. The characters were likewise hard to engage with and I pretty much struggled to read every page of this book. I read it until 100 pages and then stopped. This is one of those cases where I just didn’t have the patience or time to read something I just was not enjoying.

Overall I didn’t like this book. The world-building is well done and unique but the characters were hard to engage with and the story didn’t flow well. I wouldn’t recommend this and, obviously, won’t be reading the last two books in the series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge