Title: Dark Lullaby
Author: Mayra Calvani
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
At a tavern one Friday night, astrophysicist Gabriel Diaz meets a mysterious young woman. Captivated by her beauty as well as her views on good and evil, he spends the next several days with her. Soon, however, he begins to notice a strangeness in her, especially the way she seems to take pleasure in toying with his conscience.
The young woman, Kamilah, invites him to Rize, Turkey, where she claims her family owns a cottage in the woods. In spite of his heavy workload and the disturbing visions and nightmares about his sister’s baby that is due to be born soon, Gabriel agrees to go with her.
But nothing, not even the stunning splendor of the Black Sea, can disguise the horror of her nature. In a place where death dwells and illusion and reality seem as one, Gabriel must now come to terms with his own demons in order to save his sister’s unborn child, and ultimately, his own soul…
Dark Lullaby is an intriguing, original novel mixing Turkish folklore with the supernatural. I thought the supernatural element here was familiar, yet original at the same time, and that’s what intrigued me the most about this book.
Gabriel Diaz is not the most likeable character in history. The primary reason for this is because, when we first meet him, he’s sitting in a bar having drinks with his ex-girlfriend, Liz, with whom he’s been together for a few years. Liz and Gabriel get into a lively but good-natured discussion, and then in walks Kamilah, and from that point out, Gabriel basically threats Liz like crap. He falls head over heels for the mysterious Kamilah, and even takes her home that night. They always warn girls never to go home with a stranger, but in this case, someone should’ve warned Gabriel as well.
Even though at some point he gets a glimpse of Kamilah’s feet turned backward, and even though she acts strangely at times, he still continues to hang out with her. When Liz calls him to tell him she’s being tormented by something evil, he doesn’t even stop to consider it might be related to the woman he just met in the bar. Kamilah becomes his goddess, no matter how strange, jealous or demanding she may be.
When he finally does get suspicious, Kamilah convinces him to join her in a journey to Turkey. While Gabriel had intended to visit his twin sister, who is in the last stages of her pregnancy, he delays the visit for a few days, and goes along on this romantic trip with Kamilah. Except that when he reaches Turkey, he find out he’s in more trouble than he originally thought. The people here seem to know who Kamilah is, and they fear her…
I don’t want to give too much away about the book, or about Kamilah, but I’ll say I was genuinely surprised by the explanation behind it, and how it connected to local folklore. I also enjoyed Kamilah as a character. There were many facets about her, so she was never boring to read about. Gabriel didn’t rank highly on my favorites list though. The way he acted around Liz after he found his new girlfriend annoyed me. He wasn’t entirely unlikable, but he didn’t have enough backbone for most of the story, and I kept on wanting him to do something, anything, even just open up his eyes and see the truth in front of him.
I actually liked Liz and wished she had more screen time. She probably would’ve made a more interesting protagonist than Gabriel.
That aside, I really liked the plot here. Usually in supernatural thrillers, I can easily figure out what the monster is, be it a werewolf, vampire, or even something less notorious. But here, I had no clue, which added to the suspense. A delightful read if you’d like to get some chills without actually getting scared.
