Indelible by Dawn Metcalf Review

Indelible by Dawn Metcalf
(The Twixt, #1)
Release Date: July 30, 2013
Publisher: HarlequinTEEN; 384 pages

Some things are permanent.

Indelible.

And they cannot be changed back.

Joy Malone learns this the night she sees a stranger with all-black eyes across a crowded room—right before the mystery boy tries to cut out her eye. Instead, the wound accidentally marks her as property of Indelible Ink, and this dangerous mistake thrusts Joy into an incomprehensible world—a world of monsters at the window, glowing girls on the doorstep, and a life that will never be the same.

Now, Joy must pretend to be Ink’s chosen one—his helper, his love, his something for the foreseeable future...and failure to be convincing means a painful death for them both. Swept into a world of monsters, illusion, immortal honor and revenge, Joy discovers that sometimes, there are no mistakes.

Somewhere between reality and myth lies…

THE TWIXT

This book first caught my attention by it's cover; it's beautiful but then I read the description and realized that this is something I would enjoy. While standing in line at Harlequin's booth at BEA for Teen Day, the author, Dawn Metcalf was signing ARCs of this book. I had no idea this book was going to be there and certainly no idea she was going to be there so you can only imagine my excitement.

Putting my excitement to the side, I couldn't wait to dive in to this book (especially after an author whom I adore highly recommended it) and while I have a schedule of what to read, I cheated a little bit and pushed this up on my pile. I'm so glad I did but at the same time, not...only because now I have to wait even longer for the next book. Even if it's only a few weeks longer it's still longer and I'm impatient.

I still can't wrap my head around this book fully. Dawn created a whole new world and one I found myself getting lost in. This is actually a world where I would love to live or be like Joy and be gifted with the Sight (though some of you may find it as a curse, I do not) where I could still be human but be able to see this other world; a different kind of faery world. It's the best of both worlds.

The thing, besides the story, that I love most was the gradual build of the relationship between Joy and Indelible Ink (or Ink, for short). He's a Scribe; a being created for the purpose of 'drawing' other creatures mark on humans. Ink and Joy meet by chance and how they become attached (not romantically) to one another is messed up and twisted but it's real. But they get passed their unfortunate meeting, learn to work with one another and tolerate one another because they really have no other choice but over time it's no longer them tolerating each other; it's them looking forward to seeing each other, learning about each other, just being around each other. Then, at least for Joy, when Ink isn't around she's always thinking about him. It's the way any relationship should really be...a gradual incline.

The build up of this story is just...spot on. While I found the beginning to be slightly sluggish it didn't matter. This book reeled you in, trapped you in between the pages and wouldn't let you go...even after the book ended. It's one of those books where I'm literally begging for the next book because of how much I love the world, the story, the characters just . . . everything about this book I love and need more of. I love it so much that if you're still reading this you know how much I'm struggling to put all my feelings in to words. That is hard.

I recommend this book to people who like darker stories. Someone else had said in a review that if you liked The Replacement by Brenna Yovannoff then you'd probably love this. (I loved the Replacement, by the way) I agree with that statement. It's dark, fascinating, creepy yet something you can't put down.

Thank you so much to Harlequin for allowing me a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Also thank you to Dawn Metcalf for just being so awesome when I met you at BEA!