Review: Fantasy at its best!  Creative Genius!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 2, 2013
Dark Genesis by Dave Ferraro started out the gate like a day at Disney! You know the roller coaster that loops and twists and spins and only centrifugal force is holding you in at breakneck speeds? When the ride is over, you are all pumped up to go again because it was Just. That. Good.? That pretty much describes how I feel about Dark Genesis and the creative genius of Dave Ferraro.Alyssa wakes up inside a pentagram in a strange world filled with vampires, werewolves, witches, and even a town called Frankenstein, where scientific technology abounds! (Un-apologetically named for the man who created the gray, eight foot tall, heavily scarred "go to" guy in town.) Everyone has magic, except Alyssa, of course, who also happens to have no memory of her past, but she knows this isn't her world. Short version: Alyssa is put on a quest to regain her memory and it can only happen if she kills those who wear a pentagram like the one she woke up in. Along the way, she gains friends, allies, enemies, and a new piece of her past with each kill. But is it all an evil game that she is merely a convenient pawn in? Could each battle bring both this world and Alyssa's closer to destruction?As Alyssa and her band of merry men (and women) battle against insurmountable odds, uncovering deceit and evil, slaying monsters and chopping off heads, I had gut-clenching reactions, I swear I wanted to duck with her, I felt her pain when someone was lost, I was totally invested in each moment of the book!For those who like a little romantic tension and conflict, it's there, as snippets of a man named Cory come back, Alyssa still finds she is drawn to bad boy Parker, a dashing rogue-with-the-ladies kind of guy! Oh! Eric, too...all heroic, Nordic and full of himself in a completely endearing way! In the final battle, the stakes are high, what will Alyssa do? Where does she belong? Can she reconcile her past with her future?I highly recommend this book for its characters, its world-building, and its pace! If you like larger than life fantasy that plucks tidbits from other genre, you'll want to read this, for sure!