Review: Tightly-woven plot and memorable characters
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 20, 2012
It isn't always the case that a novel can weave a tight, richly-detailed plot into a breathtaking journey of the heart. "From the Chrysalis: A Novel" introduces Liza and Dace, two cousins who fall in love in a world that struggles to pull them apart. Isolated with the knowledge of their forbidden feelings, the two must somehow forge their own paths, but a magnetic attraction and unexpected circumstances work to ignite the complicated flames of their reluctant feelings.Rich with description and expertly paced, the technicolor details breathe life into larger-than-life settings, and readers are transported to environments sometimes warm and soulful and sometimes gritty, fluorescent, and brutally raw. Yet at the core of the novel is the desperate yearnings of a love that can't be quieted or reasoned with. The author, Karen E. Black, knows her audience well. She understands the push and pull at the foundation of our most substantial relationships, and all of the complexities that surround a woman so drawn to a man equally drawn to a darker, less forgiving world.In one realistically-painted moment in Black's novel, Liza's grandmother notes, "Boy crazy? I've never seen a girl so bewitched by men." And all I could think is how big-hearted readers - those true romantics; the ones absolutely drawn to an idealistic vision of what love can be - will find their thoughts and emotions reflected so eerily and so accurately that Liza will at once feel familiar to them. They will recognize bits and fragments of themselves throughout her journey, and the spell will not let go until the very end.An emotional read that is equal parts disturbing and enchanting, "From the Chrysalis" should be front and center on every romance-lover's shelf.