Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel

By Lisa Jewell

"Absolutely perfect." —Booklist "Fresh, lively, insightful—astonishing." — AJ Finn In her most imaginative novel yet, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell (It Could Have Been Her and None of This Is True) launches the Marvel Crime series of thrillers 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 Amber insists her children have been replaced by something horrible, something “perfect.”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.

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Published Jul 2, 2024

400 pages

Average rating: 6.24

33 RATINGS

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Andrea-The Shelf Life Books
5/10 stars
Jessica Jones is a retired superhero turned Private Investigator. One morning she gets a knock on her door from distraught mother who is concerned about her twin teenage kids. They just returned home from a summer at their fathers in the UK and are now acting very weird. She doesn’t think it’s normal teenage behavior and believes something sinister has happened to them. She pleads for Jessica to investigate and get to the bottom of their mystery. Overall, I enjoyed the book and the concept as well. I went in understanding that this was not going to be a “normal” Lisa Jewell book. With that being said, I fell that she did a fantastic job as always.

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