Review and Giveaway of Darkspell by Elizabeth Mueller

It is with great honor that I introduce talented author Elizabeth Mueller to my readership. Elizabeth not only can write, but she is quite the artist, and agreed to do my signature Character Therapist sketch (found on my website). In fact, she illustrated her debut novel, Darkspell, herself.

Here's a little about the book from Elizabeth's website:

Winter Sky believes she is everything ordinary . . . until she is kissed by Alex Stormhold.

As seer of Stormhold Coven, Alex is sworn to be Winter's protector against the darkness that hunts her. Violently thrust into a magickal realm she always thought impossible, she stumbles upon a disturbing secret of her own.


I started reading Darkspell in bits and pieces as Elizabeth posted chapters on Wattpad. I found myself clicking on Wattpad at all hours of the day, during work, when I got home and was supposed to be feeding my child, etc. Finally, I emailed her and said I wanted to influence for her...for her to please send me the entire book!

What I liked best about it was that it's a clean read, much like Twilight. There's no gratuitous scenes, but yet a sweet, compelling romance for all ages. Now, it's nothing like Twilight in that there are no vampires, but it is a paranormal, young adult romance, just with a different spin.

And that was refreshing! Elizabeth's story world is unique, a coven that wields magick. (Don't think Wiccan or witches or anything like that.) And they can do all sorts of cool things. Winter, being unfamiliar with how to "bend time" and other neat tricks, serves as the reader's avenue of introduction, but the reader never gets bogged down in the detail, because Elizabeth writes to suspend disbelief.

Winter's romance with Alex is swoon-worthy. His brother is pretty magnetic, as well, (as Winter discovers) and the result is a great love triangle of sorts. Seriously, I wasn't sure who I wanted her to end up with, because they both had their strong points in their favor.

As a therapist, I appreciated the backstory angle Elizabeth gave Winter, as her tragedy haunts her very realistically. As a lover of suspense, I felt an impending sense of "what the heck's going to happen to Winter?!?" the entire time I read the book. How was she going to fight this darkness (which was done very well, I might add)? Does she have a magick power of her own to help her? What's so special about this girl?

One lucky commenter will be wondering too! Elizabeth has graciously agreed to give away an e-book copy of Darkspell to one of my readers, so please be sure to click on "follow" to the right if you haven't already done so. Giveaway will run through Sunday. US residents only.

Don't forget to connect with Elizabeth on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Smashwords, Amazon, and her blog.

Let's Analyze: Why do you think the world has become so enamored with paranormal books? With great writers like Elizabeth, it's not a hard question, exactly, but I think it goes deeper. What is it about our own world that makes us yearn for release to another?