Yeah, I'm kind of psyched about A Brush of Darkness. I was sucked in from the very beginning, first by the heroine, and then by the world, so much so that I didn't even really care that the book was much longer than it needed to be, and that a lot of the plot - and a specific, key element of it, no less - was absolutely unnecessary. Seriously, do you guys know how much I'd have to like this book to overlook stuff like that? LOTS AND LOTS. 
 Let's start with the world, shall we? Brush of Darkness is set in, yes, a Fantasy Kitchen Sink world, but you know what? I don't mind this time because the general principle behind it is so cool. There are three paths from which supernatural creatures in this world come: the Light, Dark, and Middle path, or, Heaven, Hell, and Faeryland, respectively. However, like any good fantasy world, these are just homelands, and not indicators of moral integrity. Dark creatures - at least not the ones we meet in this book - don't seem to be inherently bad, and, as Abby so eloquently puts it: "just about every angel I'd ever met near had a stick up his ass." 
 The catch, however, is that none of these creatures - Dark, Light, or Fae - can stay long in the human world without having a TouchStone. TouchStones are humans that act as a sort of anchor for the OtherFolk, allowing them to come and go as they please... 
 Read more at You're Killing.Us