ARC Review: Breaking the Dark by Lisa Jewell

Breaking the Dark
Author: Lisa Jewell
Series: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel
Publication: Hyperion Avenue (July 2, 2024)

Description: In her most imaginative novel yet, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell (None of This Is True) launches the Marvel Crime series of thriller books for adults with an original story starring the private detective Jessica Jones.

Meet Jessica Jones: Retired super hero, private investigator, loner. She tried her best to be a shiny spandex crimefighter, 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 Amber insists her children have been replaced by something horrible, something “perfect.”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 harbor 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-favorite characters like Luke Cage, written by S.A. Cosby, and Daredevil, written by Alex Segura. Marvel Crime novels build on one another but do not require in-depth familiarity with Marvel or the other books in the series.

My Thoughts: Jessica Jones has given up her life as a superhero. After unspeakable trauma, she's living in Hell's Kitchen, drinking too much and trying to make her living as a private investigator. She's also worried that she might be pregnant.

When a distraught mother comes to hire her to find out why the teenage twins she sent away to visit their father in England have come back changed. Now they are like zombies who have become perfect. 

Jessica takes the job and finds herself in a small English village that was once the site of a horrible tragedy. The twins' father is renovating a house built on the site of the tragedy. He has a mysterious new girlfriend. When Jessica tracks down the young girl who became the twins' friend while they were in England, she finds herself swept up into a situation where someone is trying to make her perfect goo. 

Interspersed with this main story are flashbacks to an immortal woman who falls in love with a serial killer obsessed with blood and a young woman who wants to gain fame and make her fortune by making an app that makes the user's all perfect too. 

I came into this story knowing nothing about the Marvel Universe and nothing about Jessica Jones or her backstory. I had questions after I began this one and consulted wikipedia for some answers. Anyone who already knows about the Universe will find that this story fits right into the canon and adds depth to Jessica's story.

I really enjoyed the book both for the science fictional aspects and the underlying question of what it means to be a mother and what being a mother can cost. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.