The Diviners (The Diviners #1) – Libba Bray

Title: The Diviners (The Diviners #1)

Author: Libba Bray

Release Date: September 18, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Books

Format: Paperback

Page Number: 578

Evangeline O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City–and she is ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far.

When the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer. As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfurl in the city that never sleeps. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened….

4 out of 5 stars

This book took me forever to read, but I’m SO GLAD I read it!

The Diviners follows Evie O’Neill as she goes to live with her uncle Will in New York. Her parents send her there from their small town in Ohio because she told everyone at a party a truth about a wealthy family’s son. Evie is ‘too much’ for her small Ohio town and is excited to see where her adventures in NYC take her, when all of the sudden she and her uncle get involved in a murder mystery case. Evie has powers but has never been able to talk about them to anyone, but maybe she can confide in her uncle…

This was such an interesting read! I do think that it was quite long, but it was totally worth it. The characters in this book are so well crafted; they’re all unique and fun to read about. The mysteries keep you on your toes, and this made me want to travel to NYC!

Evie is so spunky and fun and is the epitome of a flapper girl. She loves partying and dancing and being unapologetically her, which she can do in New York. She’s much better fitted to a big city than to a small Ohio town.

The mysteries were so cool and the way that the story played out was amazing. In the book there was this Pentacle Killer and he was killing in the order of some creepy religious text. So it follows Evie, uncle Will, Jericho, and Sam trying to figure out what is happening.

Evie is a Diviner, so she has a supernatural ability. She can see information about people by just holding an object that is important to someone. This adds a nice amount of mystery and paranormal to this story! She also wants to help catch the Pentacle Killer with this ability but no one knows. It’s just a whole lot of tiptoeing around people to keep her power a secret. It’s suspenseful and cool.

One of my FAVORITE tropes ever is hate to love, and that is being set up so so so well in this book. The first person Evie meets when she gets to New York is Sam Lloyd. He steals $20 from her at the train station and she freaks the freak out at him. He keeps popping up everywhere and then he gets a job at her uncle’s museum so he’s always around. He’s crushing crazy hard on her, but she’s oblivious to it, but it’s SO CUTE. I really hope that their relationship turns into something because it would be so cute.

This was a really great book and it followed a few different storylines and I think they’re all going to meet up in the next book and YAY! I’m so excited. Read this book!!