Set to be published on 4th July 2024 and the first book in a new Marvel Crime book series, Breaking The Dark by Lisa Jewell Jessica Jones, a private investigator and retired super hero based out of Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, who goes from job to job as a hard living, rough talking, loner. And then a wealthy Upper East Side woman pays her a visit. Amber Randall is concerned about her twin sixteen-year-olds, Lark and Fox, who have acted and looked very different since they returned from spending the summer with their British father in the UK. She tells Jessica that her children have unnaturally perfect skin for teenagers and have lost all the tics and habits that made them who they were. They are not Lark and Fox, she tells Jessica. Something has happened to them.
To find out more, Jessica travels to Essex to talk to their father and once there meets Belle who is living a curiously isolated existence in a run-down farmhouse with her guardian Debra. Jessica knows that Lark and Fox had spent the summer with Belle—but can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for Lark and Fox’s new personas?
Jessica soon discovers that, behind Belle and Debra, evil geniuses are playing a dangerous game with technology in order to make the world a “better place”, not caring who gets hurt, maimed or even killed in the process. Can Jessica stop them from wreaking destruction on a whole generation of young people?
Rating: 
Thank you to NetGalley for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I was a little cautious about picking this book up at first. I love Lisa Jewell, and I love Marvel. But together? Would it work? Would I even enjoy reading a Marvel story when I’m so used to watching the films on the big screen? Especially when Jessica Jones isn’t a character I know a lot about.
But I couldn’t miss the opportunity to give it a try, and I now realise how silly I was to have any doubts, as this was the perfect combination!
Although I only finished reading Breaking The Dark yesterday, I’m already missing having the book to pick up and get back into. I really loved this dark and mysterious world of Marvel’s Manhattan. And that’s what worked so well for me, as it reads like a classic Lisa Jewell thriller, but because it is a superhero story, literary anything can happen.
I really didn’t know which way it was going to go. Was it going to involve vampires? Or would it be another otherworldly being? Or maybe it was just a new futuristic technology that would change how the world works? Whatever was going on, it was dark, creepy, and messed up, and I was desperate to find out how everything linked together! There is a lot going on at times, but everything is wrapped up really well at the end, and my many questions were all definitely answered.
This is still a book for non-superhero fans, too, though. I actually couldn’t even tell you what Jessica Jones’s power is, apart from knowing that she can jump really high. So the sci-fi elements aren’t too heavy, and the links to other Marvel characters are easy to follow, so this is definitely still a book for fans of Lisa Jewell who have no knowledge of the Marvel world, too.
However, although I joke that I still don’t even know what Jessica’s powers are, this also highlights that I would have liked some more context and background about her at the start. We get a glimpse into her past at the end, but I feel like if we learnt more about her and her history at the start, it would have been easier to understand her character and the world she lives in. It didn’t take long for me to engage with her, though, and I eventually got a good understanding of her character, job, and current situation. By the end, I was definitely a fan, and now I really need to watch some of the TV series based on her character.
I’d definitely be interested to read a follow-up, as well! And I look forward to seeing how other authors take on other characters in this new series of books.
Details:
Breaking The Dark by Lisa Jewell
Series: Marvel Crime #1
Release Date: 4th July 2024
Print Length: 400 pages
Genre: Thriller/Sci Fi
Publisher: Century / Penguin
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