Scent of Darkness
By Margot Berwin
By Margot Berwin
Genre: New Adult / Paranormal
Publisher: Pantheon
Date of Publication: January 29th 2013
ISBN-10: 030790752X
ISBN-13: 978-0307907523
ASIN: B008WONVHU
Number of pages: 240
Random House | Barnes & Noble
Book Description
When Evangeline's grandmother dies she leaves behind a ruby-red vial of perfume with the instructions: Don't pull out the stopper, Evangeline, unless you want everything in your life to change.
From the moment Eva places a drop on her neck, she becomes the object of intense desire for everyone around her. Soon she's torn between Gabriel, a quiet medical student, and Michael, a beautiful and self-absorbed artist.
Scent of Darkness is about loving someone who is evil, tarot, New Orleans, and of course perfume.
Excerpt
My name is Eva from
the longer and more beautiful Evangeline. I had something very
special once, something that I took for granted and lost. I set out
to find it again, and as so often happens, it was right there in
front of me. Or should I say it was right there inside of me, running
through my veins like a blessing, or a plague.
*
Jasmine smells like
human flesh. Mix it with Cumin, which smells like sweat, and you have
the scent of sex. If you spread it on your body, watch out, you’ll
have sycophants all over the place-people crawling out of the
woodwork to be close to you.
Human beings are
defenseless against scent. They can’t hide from it because they
can’t see it, or touch it, or hold it. All by itself it crawls into
their brains, and by the time they’re in love with it, or the
person it’s coming from, it’s too late. They’re tied to it
forever, through the long, tight leash of memory.
I suppose what I’m
trying to say is that a great scent, like a great love, can crash
onto the shore of your life like a wave, creating either damage or
change, or in my case, both.
What happened when I
came across a scent like that was that I fell in love with two men at
the same time, and one was pure evil, and one was good. It was an
old-fashioned love triangle. A classic tale that came up roses, and
jasmine, and of course, tears.
So my name is Eva
from the longer, and more beautiful Evangeline. And for me, the scent
I found held my past, present, and future in its ethereal little
hand.
*
I
don’t mean to be morbid and mostly I’m not, but it is possible to
love someone evil. I know that for a fact. I wish I didn’t, but
wishing isn’t going to change my story.
It
happened during my 18th
year when I was too young to know that there are events and
relationships that never go away. That you can never take back. That
change you in ways over which you have no control.
My grandmother
Louise, the person I was closest to in the world, would say that none
of that mattered anyway. That who we love isn’t a question of good
or evil, but one of scent.
“Scent can do
crazy things to the mind,” she said. “It can make us love people
we shouldn’t and turn away those we should. It can make us desire
the child of a criminal and shun the overtures of a saint. Never open
your legs for a man whose mind you love but only for the man whose
scent you can’t live without. That’s the one you’ll stay with
forever.”
I’d
spent every summer of my childhood with Louise but it was the summer
of my 18th
year that changed everything. That was the beginning of all the
danger and the beauty and the blood.
About
the Author
Margot
Berwin earned her MFA from the New School in 2005. Her stories have
appeared on Nerve.com, in the New York Press, and in the anthology
The Future of Misbehavior.
Her
first novel Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire was
published in 2009 by Pantheon. Her new novel, SCENT OF DARKNESS, also
by Pantheon is coming out on January 29, 2013.
Margot
Lives in New York City.
Contact Margot
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