Spark of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #1)

by Penn Cole

For anyone who has ever been told their spark shouldn’t burn so bright and for all the people who loved them precisely because it did.

It’s never the enemy who attacks outright who will strike your killing blow, he’d taught me. It’s the one who hides in the shadows and waits. The one who strikes when you’ve finally looked away. Those are the true predators to fear.

At whatever cost, to whatever end. Survive first, mind the consequences later.

As a child, I’d once imagined the shadows were a tangible thing, a great blanket I could wrap around myself to hide from the world. I found myself doing the same now, silently begging my old friend the darkness to keep me veiled.

“That’s what family is all about. Standing by each other’s side, even when you make the worst mistakes.”

Hope without reason is... it’s cruel.” I took a deep breath, willing the burning in my throat to fade. “I can’t keep pretending like life is still normal. Like she’s not...” My voice wobbled. “Like she’s not gone.”

I relate so much to the grief parts of this book……

then my mother disappeared and my life fell apart, and I had desperately needed the simplicity of a friend with no expectations. Henri had stepped back into that role without complaint, ready to be whatever and whoever my grief needed him to be.

We’d both grown harder, angrier, our souls calloused from life and loss.

Though I still cared for him as deeply as I ever had, I was no longer the laughing, carefree girl he had fallen for—and when I looked in his eyes, I struggled to find the tender-hearted boy I’d once known. I wasn’t sure exactly where that left us now.

I didn’t want gentle or delicate. I wanted to burn.

And I wondered how long I had until the fire in my soul burned me alive.