The opening immediately turned me off.

I appreciate the opportunity to review. Sorry for the long delay in feedback. I'm working on clearing out my Netgalley backlog. I am DNF'ing all books that just don't work within the first 50-100 pages. Trying to find the joy in reading again by going through the hundreds of abandoned books here.

1.5

*Book source ~ ARC. My review is voluntary and honest.

Ivy and Violet Grant are twins abandoned by their mother at a very young age. Their maternal grandparents raise them since no one knows who their father is. Well, maybe except their mom, but she never said. One day a farmhand named Charlie Logan makes an extremely inappropriate move on 8-yr-old Ivy and Grandpa Jack takes a pitchfork to him, telling him to leave or die. So Charlie leaves, but his obsession for Ivy never dies. When he finds a dark book of magic during a burglary, he decides to finally get his wish: Ivy as his. However, it isn’t until years later and Ivy and Violet have since been taught by their grandmother how to use the magic they were born with. But will it be enough to combat the evil that Charlie conjures?

It’s a rare book by Red Adept Publishing that disappoints me, but this is one of them. It has a decent premise with magic handed down through maternal bloodlines and an obsessive villain that gets his hands on a dark book of shadows. However, it isn’t until nearly the end it starts to deliver, but then it just as quickly deflates again like a premature ejaculation. The pacing is unbearably slow especially in the beginning, the tone is inconsistent, the characters are flat, Ivy is just plain TSTL, Charlie is a cardboard villain and frankly a village idiot, and there are inconsistencies galore. Plus, this is supposed to be a book about magic and the part it plays in the Grants’ lives and yet there’s basically bupkis about it. I like my fantasy books to have more than just some token magic. I think this book was trying to be a suspenseful fantasy, but fell far short in both areas. I could not stop rolling my eyes, so it was impossible to fall headlong into the story. I like Violet (most of the time), Kevin, and the sheriff. That’s about it. If there is going to be a book 2, I’m honestly not interested.

This book was a little too fast paced for me. I felt like I needed a breather between chapters with reading it. I do like VIolet as a character, however wishing that the character motivations would be more prominent.

This book just didn't cut it for me, I think it had a lot of potential but it was not well developed from the start, an easy read but it would have been better if some key plot points were expanded or explained. It seemed too much of a coincidence in some cases, the first half was kind of slow for me while I liked the ending.

Well developed characters, flowing text, with a little bit of suspense, what's not to like.

Dark Designs is a story about twin sisters, their magical legacy, and a fight against evil. The story opens up with a pretty disturbing scene that introduces the villain and his sick obsession with one of the girls. I found parts of the book misleading. For example, this is the first time magic/voodoo has been introduced in this town and this doesn't seem to have a profound impact on the other townsfolk. There was emphasis on the girls' mother disappearing without a trace, which would lead a reader to believe this would be resolved somehow. I found the pace pretty slow.

A book about love, hate and magic! Where their mother is they may never know. The live of a grandmother is the strength that is needed in their lives to carry on. Twins grow up to be able to wield powers of magic learned from their grandmother. How are they to know that a horrifying experience will lead them from good magic to dark. Working together the three women are able to help their small town overcome the darkness that an evil entity has let lose. In the process, good does overcome evil.
5 Stars

Ivy and Violet are twins who live with their grandparents. Their mother leaves without saying anything to her parents without her children. Grandma known as Audrey in the novel raises them with Grandpa. When Ivy was eight years old, a farmhand approaches her as she is visiting the kittens in the barn. His name is Charlie Logan. Charlie likes Ivy a little too much but is interrupted by Grandpa and Charlie is told to leave and never come back. Charlie does leave. He and his friend go to rob a home where Charlie discovers a book of magic. What type of magic is it? Ivy and Violet are not identical twins and have different personalities. When Ivy goes home after graduating from college, she doesn't tell her sister or Grandma about the nightmares that she has been having. Why is she having nightmares? Charlie comes back to the town where Ivy and Violet and Grandma lives. Why?

This is a story about dark magic vs. light magic. Which is strongest? Besides being about magic, the novel is a thriller with some romance thrown in. It's an entertaining read. I enjoyed it very much.

Ivy and Violet Grant are twins who are complete opposites of one another. They have been raised on their grandparents farm with Ivy being the one who couldn’t wait to leave and see the world whereas Violet is content to stay. The one thing the girls have in common is they come from a family line that has magical abilities.

One day when the girls were young Charlie Logan had trapped Ivy and luckily her grandfather saved her before things went too far. Charlie was fired from his job on the farm and told to leave. After the encounter Charlie plans a break in but when almost caught he grabs the first thing he can and finds he’s stumbled upon a book of magic. With his obsession of Ivy still in play Charlie returns now with power of his own.

Dark Designs by Stefanie Spangler had some interesting things and some others I was left scratching my head about leaving me to rate this book at 3.5 stars. It’s a fairly quick read that combines the fantasy world of magic with a suspense story line with Charlie’s obsession with Ivy so I enjoyed the creativity there adding magic into a thriller.

What had me curious though is the foundation of the story is that the girls have magical ability and Charlie just happens to work for the family but doesn’t seem to know of their powers since they didn’t at that time either. But here after he leaves he just happens to stumble upon a spell book to learn to use and return? Seems all built on coincidence and I think for me I would have enjoyed a bit more world building in the beginning there to better connect the magical side to the thriller side of the story.

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.