Review: Crane by Stacey Rourke

Cover Source: GoodReads.com

Title: Crane

Author: Stacey Rourke

Series: The Legends Saga #1

Version Reviewed: Finished, eBook.

Website: www.rourkewrites.weebly.com

*I purchased this book myself.*

GoodReads Summary:

The Horseman is unending,
his presence shan’t lessen.
If you break the curse,
you become the legend.
Washington Irving and Rip Van Winkle had no choice but to cover up the deadly truth behind Ichabod Crane’s disappearance. Centuries later, a Crane returns to Sleepy Hollow awakening macabre secrets once believed to be buried deep.
What if the monster that spawned the legend lived within you?
Now, Ireland Crane, reeling from a break-up and seeking a fresh start, must rely on the newly awakened Rip Van Winkle to discover the key to channeling the darkness swirling within her. Bodies are piling high and Ireland is the only one that can save Sleepy Hollow by embracing her own damning curse.
But is anyone truly safe when the Horseman rides?

 Review:
I am in LOVE with this book. I absolutely cannot wait to continue the series.

Before I get ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning. The cover.  Good lord, that cover. Stacey Rourke better kiss her cover designer because that thing is freakin' beautiful. It's fits the story so well and is so eye catching and gorgeous that I just can't stop looking at it. As almost always, it was the very first thing that attracted me to the book. How could I not be interested in a book with a cover like that?

And then the name. As soon as I saw the name, I knew it had to have something to do with the headless horseman and Sleepy Hollow. Please tell me that I'm not the only person in the world that automatically thinks of Ichabod, Sleepy Hollow and it's bloodthirsty hessian when they hear or see the word Crane.

Although I (hate to admit it) wasn't a huge fan of the original The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, I've always found the story fascinating and loved anything related to it.  Crane definitely lived up to my expectations and did way more for me than Irving (the writer, not the character) ever did.

It was so fascinating to see how Rourke twisted and weaved each character into the legend and how they each had their very own role to play in the story, how each one of them brought some different element to the events that were occurring.

This is definitely one of those books that I would read again and again. It's creepy and beautiful and pulls you in and doesn't let go.  I loved the way we were able to go back and forth, to experience Ireland in the modern day but also witness the legend of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman as it originally played out years before Ireland arrived in Sleepy Hollow.

The book just had such a neat twist on the original story and I loved it just as much as I thought I would.  I read the eBook version of it, but I definitely plan on buying a physical copy of it just to have on my shelf.

The next book, Raven, has to do with my favorite writer ever, Edgar Allan Poe, so I'm super, super excited to see how Rourke is going to twist this new tale.  So excited!

Rating: 5 Stars.
Character: Ireland, Rip & Noah.