The Found (Crow City #2)
4 Firefly Stars
I was absolutely excited to read this ARC graciously given by the author. Eagerly awaiting to read Willow and Priest story when we had a glimpses of them in "The Lost". Willow had something hidden inside of her, a mystery that I wanted to look into when she helped Leigh. I knew her backstory would be interesting and unique, and it was. Her story really surprised me as much as her character did. I was sympathetic to her situation, her emotions, and her resentments.
Willow Armitage has been taking care of her father from a very young age, after her mother left her and her father. It has been the only thing she has known, she knew her mother was flighty and different from the other mothers she had seen. Awaiting for the day when her mother would find her new adventure. An adventure that came in the form of men that where not her father.
“Somehow she’d skipped right from childhood into the adult responsibilities of a caretaker, the sole breadwinner, the decision-maker of the house.”
Willow had to make do with her current situation and it wasn’t easy when she was constantly picked on as a child, missing the maternal love and affection that she desperately needed. Yes, she loved her father dearly, but he couldn’t possibly understand what she needed. He had his own hurt and health issues to deal with and with his Multiple Sclerosis getting worse, his pride as a man took a hit. Along with Willow’s dreams and own life.
“At twenty-four she was already a dry vessel, bled of everything that made her a woman, that made her alive…”
It seemed like life itself was throwing obstacles her way no matter which way she turned, along with taking away her choices as well… or so it seemed.
“You may resent your mother, but she knew the one thing it takes most a lifetime to figure out: If you don’t choose, life will choose for you.”
When walking home Willow encounters a man in a horrid situation and the man that committed the crime. The fear in her is what makes her run, run every which way that wouldn’t lead the man back to her and her home.
“He wasn’t mean to be seen by the light of day; he was made of whispers and darkness, and were the sun to rise in this single moment he might cease to exist entirely, fled back to the place where eldritch things and nightmares hid come dawn.”
But he finds her and takes her because she has now become a liability for him. Priest has never been the same since his return from his military tour. The darkness has invaded his mind, heart, and soul. There’s no saving a man that does not want to be saved. The only way he knows how to repent is by striking the sins from his body one lashing at a time. Hoping to cleanse whatever is left come judgement day for the sins he has committed.
“I am a bad person. I am broken. We are all monsters to some degree, firefly. We all walk the edges of the dark. I am simply a monster who destroys other monsters. My monstrosity has purpose.”
In his mind he eliminates the real monsters roaming the streets of Crow City. Even though he’s a monster to a certain degree. He doesn’t want to keep Willow, he see’s something within her that needs to be set free, but not until she reveals the truth to herself and face them straight on, the things that scare her the most.
“Show me a way to let you go free, and I will take it.
‘You close your eyes to the things you want. Things you’re afraid to want.
‘It’s not about capturing you.
‘It’s about showing you the pleasure in giving up control.”
These two are so broken in their own way. Trying to find a fine line of living with the choices they make. Even though, their choices might seem noble, seem like it’s the only choice, they both teach one another to live and how to take charge of their own destiny.
This is one of the many reasons why I love Mr. McCade’s work. He digs deep into the darkness that people are afraid to indulge in. The broken parts of a person that he turns into beauty. And brighten the darkest of his broken characters. And Willow and Priest are no exception.
Priest is so lost that he has forgotten who he truly was.
“Those who show the least often feel the most deeply, firefly. Scar tissue is a deep and unchanging thing, but underneath it, blood still flows.”
But he pushes Willow to open her darkest secrets, her deepest fear, to show her that she has never lived. And along the way maybe even save himself.Priest opens Willow up to the feeling and emotions that she has kept dormant. Fearing she’d be just like her mother, a “dirty thing.” But during her captivity all her secrets flow out of her into an over-flowed river. And Priest pushes her past her limits, past her barriers.
“Every failure and disappointment and hurt and moments when she’d turned away, passive and quiet, had been sleeping somewhere deep and growing, growing, turning into a dragon not fire but of blood, one horrible teeth that would eat her soul…”
Showing her weakness, regrets, and resentments, but most of all her strength and growth. I will admit that I was afraid to read “The Found” because “The Lost” was and is one of my favorite reads, but Cole McCade continued the magic and the beauty of Willow and Priest story.
For more info on the author and his other amazing books, please check out his website at http://blackmagicblues.com/
