Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Story Novel by Lisa JewellSynopsis: “Meet Jessica Jones: Retired super hero, private investigator, loner. She tried her best to be a shiny spandex crime-fighter, but that life only led to unspeakable trauma. Now she avoids that world altogether and works on surviving day-to-day in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. The morning a distraught mother comes into her office, Jessica would prefer to nurse her hangover and try to forget last night’s poor choices. But something about Amber Randall’s story strikes a chord with her. Amber is adamant that something happened to her teenage twins while they were visiting their father in the UK. The twins don’t act like themselves, and they now have flawless skin, have lost their distinctive tics and habits, and keep talking about a girl named Belle. Amber insists her children have been replaced by something horrible, something “perfect.” Traveling to a small village in the British countryside, Jessica meets the mysterious Belle, who lives a curiously isolated life in an old farmhouse with a strange woman who claims to be her guardian. Can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for the Randall twins’ new personas? Why does the strange little village of Barton Wallop seem to harbour dark energies and mysteries in its tight-knit community? A mother’s intuition is never wrong. And Jessica knows that nothing in life is perfect—not these kids, not her on-again, off-again relationship with Luke Cage, and certainly not Jessica herself. But even as she tries to buy into the idea that better days are ahead, Jessica Jones has seen all too clearly that behind every promise of perfection trails a dark, dangerous shadow.
Breaking the Dark, the first book in the brand-new Marvel Crime series, introduces fans to a grittier, street-level side of the Marvel Universe, and will continue with original novels featuring fan-favourite characters like Luke Cage, written by S.A. Cosby, and Daredevil, written by Alex Segura.”

My Review

I loved this latest thriller from Lisa Jewell, one of my favourite authors.

This was one of my most highly anticipated books of the year. I must admit when I first heard that it was going to be a Jessica Jones book I was mystified. Why did Marvel pick her to write something so different? Could she pull it off and most importantly would I like it?

I confess that I’m not an expert on this reluctant superhero, having only seen a few clips of the Jessica Jones series, but I loved her in The Defenders, fighting alongside Daredevil (my favourite), Luke Cage and Iron Fist. 

I pleased to say that I was hooked pretty much from the first few pages, especially when Jessica Jones said something that made me laugh out loud. That’s when I knew that I was in safe hands and that Lisa Jewell had got her!

I loved the mystery surrounding the ‘perfect’ teenagers Fox and Lark, and the way the story developed with Jessica having to travel to Essex to find out what had happened that summer. The village of Barton Wallop was eerie and quite claustrophobic, especially that old farmhouse with the guard dogs that Jessica visits to find out more about Belle, the girl Fox and Lark had befriended.

There was a plot development about halfway through that I really wasn’t expecting, and it added to the tension brilliantly.

I’m not saying any more, as I’ll  spoil it for you, except that I loved it, and I’ll definitely be looking out for the next books in this series, especially the book featuring Daredevil!

Book 14 of 20 Books of Summer 2024