Okay Twi-hards, put down Twilight (surely you know it by heart anyway) and pick up Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.  I ordered this book after falling in love with the gorgeous cover and having my interest piqued by a brief plot synopsis on Amazon.  Beautiful Creatures has many of the elements of Twilight: a love story between a supernatural being and a mortal, a twist on a classic supernatural type (vampire in Twilight and witch in Beautiful Creatures), teenage angst, and mystery.  But it also adds elements to the genre with a historical fiction subplot, regional trivia and familial sacrifice.

The story unfolds through the eyes of a quiet teenage boy who is marking time until he can escape the small southern town where he has lived his whole life.  When the first new girl in years comes to the local high school, Lena, Ethan realizes that even though he’s never seen her before, he’s been having nightmares about her for months.  They discover that they have a telepathic connection and quickly become entangled in a mystery that takes over everything.  Along the way, the rest of the town weighs in adding to the drama.

I enjoyed this book.  It was a fun escapist read and I look forward to the sequel. The rich text begs for a film version.  Some of the side-characters were more interesting than the main characters.  Ethan’s longtime caretaker, Amma, and his great-aunts are a riot.  Lena’s uncle and cousin dominated the scenes they appeared in.

My main criticism is that the narrator Ethan has a feminine voice.  I don’t always buy him as a teenage boy.  True he plays basketball, but he barely gives it a thought off the court.  He also takes his introduction to Lena’s supernatural side in unbelievable stride.  If I was confronted with the things he saw, I’d be checking myself into the looney bin post-haste.

Otherwise, if you can suspend disbelief and dive into the fantasy, this book is a wondrous way to while away some winter hours.