Review: For Darkness Shows the Stars

Title: For Darkness Shows the Stars
Author: Diana Peterfreund
Source: ARC from a friend

Goodreads Summary & Cover:

It's been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.
Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family's estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot's estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth--an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.
But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret--one that could change their society . . . or bring it to its knees. And again, she's faced with a choice: cling to what she's been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she's ever loved, even if she's lost him forever.
Inspired by Jane Austen's "Persuasion", "For Darkness Shows the Stars" is a breathtaking romance about opening your mind to the future and your heart to the one person you know can break it.

My Take:
First, let me just say that I could not put this book down until I finished...except for the final chapter. I had to cry it out before I could finish! It was that kind of book for me.

This is the first book that I've read of Diana Peterfreund, but with writing like this, it will not be my last.

The way that she told the story, using letters that Elliot and Kai had sent each other as children to tell their story was fantastic. The classic "pride getting in the way" kept them apart through the book.

Please read this book. Please! There were so many times that I would be in the middle of a chapter and I would lower the book and look at my mom and say, "This is just SO good!" and then get back to reading. That happened numerous times.

I have one more chapter to read as I'm typing this, but know that before the last chapter is a final letter from Kai. It did me in! I will get back to the book in a moment and hope that Elliot's decision is what I want her to do. That's all I'll say on that and I won't give away anything from the final chapter.

I have never read Jane Austen's Persuasion, but I may have to pick it up and see how Peterfreund built the story of For Darkness Shows the Stars from it.

One of the most beautiful lines, near the end of the story, just made me want to cry all over again.

"Kai's familiar pen strokes hadn't changed with age, and they formed words that wrapped around her heart like a vine and held tight." 

Saaa-woon!!!

My Rating:

For Darkness Shows the Stars also meets a requirement for the Standalone Reading Challenge!