When Brooke Starr's family is murdered, she decides to abandon her future with Julliard playing piano and heads to Alaska to escape it all. When she arrives, she slowly finds out that no distance from the crime scene can make her forget. When Chance Taylor saves her from a suicide attempt, he can't deny the pull he feels toward her, a pull he's never felt before. Together, they try to battle Brooke's demons, but the past will not let her go without a fight.

THE DARKEST JOY by Marata Eros does a wonderful job of setting up the physical Alaskan setting and the emotional dark setting the characters are in. It pulls you right in to Brooke's story and makes your heart tear a little as she goes through her journey of grief. Both Brooke and Chance take turns at narrating the story, and they each have a unique voice that makes you want to read more and more.

Even though I love the writing, Brooke and Chance have a very insta-love relationship that I found hard to get on board with. Chance is supposed to be a man only in love with the sea before Brooke, and it repeats that in the story a lot, but I never felt like I got to see that part of Chance. His narration comes in after he sees Brooke, and he falls for her so quickly, there isn't really any 'before Brooke' that the readers see enough to contrast or note any development in him. The "I love yous" are out very quickly, and it gives a rushed feeling to them. I love their personalities as characters, but I just wish the relationship between them wasn't so instant.

While Brooke is a nice, rounded character that I really like, there are some moments where she gets frustrating. Since her family was killed, an FBI agent keeps in contact with her since the killer is still on the loose and murdering other families. Brooke describes the agent as really amiable and seems to appreciate him, but she repeatedly ignores his calls and messages. I understand that she is trying to get away from what happened, but she seems to have a break through at one point where she wants to help out the other survivors, and yet she still ignores his messages. Of course it was necessary plot wise to build up to something, but I had a hard time believing she would care that little about the issue to ignore him so often.

Overall, I like THE DARKEST JOY, but I don't love it. Marata Eros does a great job of pulling the reader into the story, and I did find it hard to put down. However, in the end, I just couldn't get past some parts of it to really enjoy it.