Obsidian

What's inside (8 sections)

1. A Florida blogger lands next door to trouble
2. What Daemon and Dee actually are
3. Dawson, Bethany, and why Daemon pushes so hard
4. School fights, lake light, and the trace that will not fade
5. Obsidian works when running does not
6. The field, the healing, and choosing to walk away
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked up Obsidian because I kept seeing Jennifer L. Armentrout on two different shelves at once. Fantasy readers knew her from Blood and Ash. Romance readers knew her from Wait for You. And then there was this older YA series people still argue about. Armentrout published it with Entangled Publishing in 2011, a 292 page opener for the Lux series, and it reads like the start of something she could not put down. I went in expecting a standard bad boy next door story. I came out thinking about light, grief, and how much work it takes to stay hidden.

Katy Swartz is 17 and not happy about moving. She lived in Gainesville, Florida. Her dad died three years ago. Her mom, a nurse, takes a job in a small town in West Virginia and Katy spends senior year as the new girl who would rather update her book blog than knock on a neighbor's door. Her mom pushes her to be social. Katy promises to try. That promise is the whole engine for the first act, because the only neighbors close by are Dee and Daemon Black, twins her age, beautiful in a way that makes Katy stare and then feel silly for staring.

Dee is warm from the first meeting in the grocery store. Funny, open, a little lonely. Daemon is the opposite. Tall, green eyed, rude on purpose. He tells Katy straight out that he does not want her around his sister. Katy, who is stubborn in the way only a teenager who has already lost a parent can be, decides she will be friends with Dee anyway. I liked Katy right away for that. She is not fearless. She gardens badly. She rereads favorite books. She misses her dad. But when someone tells her to shrink, she gets louder.

Come on, Kittycat, don't be a bystander.

That line from her dad comes back a lot. Kirkus quoted it in its review, and Armentrout uses it as Katy's private push. Do not watch. Act. It explains why Katy keeps asking questions when a smarter move might be to drop it.

A Florida blogger lands next door to trouble

The early chapters are mostly normal life made awkward. New house with creaks. Boxes everywhere. Mom working late. Katy meets Dee properly and gets invited over, only to have Daemon glare through the whole visit. At school, Katy meets Lesa, who becomes her human friend, quick with jokes and willing to sit with the new girl at lunch. She also meets Ash, beautiful and cold, draped over Daemon in the cafeteria like she owns him. Ash hates Katy on sight. Andrew and Adam Thompson hover nearby, handsome and watchful in the same way the Blacks are.

Katy notices small wrong things. Daemon moves too fast. Lights flicker when he is angry. One night in a parking lot, a stranger grabs her. She is sure she is in real trouble. Then Daemon is there, and the man is gone, and Katy cannot explain what she saw. Her arm is hurt. Everyone at school sees the bandage the next day and wants the story. Katy does not have one that makes sense.

Then comes the truck. Katy argues with Daemon on a road near their houses, turns, steps out, and a truck is coming straight at her. She should have been hit. Instead time seems to stop. Air goes still. Light bends. Daemon gets her out of the way in a way no human could. She knows what she saw, even if her brain tries to talk her out of it. That scene is the hook, and Armentrout plays it well. Katy does not suddenly become a detective. She panics. She avoids him. She writes around it in her head. When she finally confronts him, she is shaking.

I should say here that the high school parts felt true to me, even when the dialogue is a bit much. The cafeteria humiliation where Katy dumps a tray over Ash and Daemon after they mock her, the biology class with Mr. Garrison staring, the rumors about Dawson Black and a missing local girl named Bethany Thompson. It is a small town. People remember who sat where. Katy, as the outsider with a bandaged arm and alien neighbors, has no chance of blending in. Armentrout lets her fail at blending in. That helps later, when Katy has to stop caring what people think in order to survive.

What Daemon and Dee actually are

Daemon finally tells her. He and Dee are Luxen, beings made of light from a planet called Lux. Their world was wrecked by their enemies, the Arum, shadows that feed on Luxen energy. Small groups of Luxen came to Earth years ago in meteor showers. They can look human, but under that shape they are light. They can move incredibly fast, lift impossible weight, shape light into blasts, heal cuts, turn nearly invisible by bending light, and freeze a moment in a way that looks like stopping time.

The Thompsons are Luxen too. So is Matthew Gray, who teaches as Mr. Garrison. A branch of the government, usually called the Department of Defense in the book, knows they are here. The deal is simple and harsh. Housing, money, school, normal cover. In return, stay quiet, stay apart from humans when you can, do not draw attention. Daemon is blunt about why he was cruel at the start. Every human who gets close becomes a weak point. The Arum hunt by trace, a kind of glow left on a human when a Luxen uses power near them. Luxen and Arum can see it. Humans cannot. By saving Katy twice, Daemon marked her like a bright flag.

Dee shows Katy more gently what that means. At Dee's house, still sore and confused, Katy watches Dee move, heat a drink without touching it, shift her face. Dee explains the trace will fade if Katy keeps her distance and stays quiet, but for now she has to stick close to Daemon because he is strong enough to fight off what might come. Dee also begs her not to tell anyone, because if the Defense people learn a human knows, Katy could be taken in, watched, or worse.

This is where the book won me over. The lore is not complicated, but the cost is clear. Daemon cannot fix what he did by apologizing. He has to babysit a girl he insulted, and she has to trust a boy she dislikes. Their arguments in this stretch are petty and stressed and funny. He calls her Kitten to annoy her. She calls him out for staring. She tries to garden to calm down. He watches from his porch. It is claustrophobic in a way that fits. Two houses, woods around them, long nights.

Does the science hold up? Not really, and Armentrout does not pretend it does. Light people who need obsidian to be killed, shadows that eat light, a government that pays rent. You accept it or you do not. I accepted it because the rules stay steady. Light heals but leaves a mark. Using a lot of power exhausts them. Obsidian, the volcanic glass, cuts through both Luxen and Arum and can block tracking. Once you learn that, you can follow every fight.

Dawson, Bethany, and why Daemon pushes so hard

Every Luxen family has a sad story. The Blacks have Dawson.

Dawson is Daemon and Dee's brother. Dee and Daemon rarely say his name at first. Other kids whisper it. He fell for Bethany Thompson, a human girl, sister to the Thompson Luxen? No, Bethany was human, which made it forbidden in the eyes of their minders. Dawson and Bethany used power together, left a trace, drew an Arum. Both vanished. The official line is that they died. Dee believes it some days and not others. Daemon carries it like a stone.

When Daemon tells Katy the fuller version on a walk to the lake, his voice changes. No teasing. He talks about surveillance, about how Dawson wanted a normal life, dates and school games, and how quickly that turned. Katy tells him about her dad in return, the cancer, the three years since, the way her mom works extra shifts to avoid an empty house. They sit with that. Two teenagers who lost the center of their families. I thought this was the best written exchange in the book. No speeches. Just two people trading facts because facts are easier than feelings.

It reframes Daemon. He is not only arrogant. He is scared that Dee will pick a human friend and repeat the pattern. He is scared that he already repeated it by saving Katy. He tries to control everything after that. Where Katy goes. Who she talks to. What she reads online. Katy hates it, and she is right to hate it, even if his fear makes sense. Armentrout lets both things sit side by side. Daemon's protectiveness comes from loss. It is still controlling. Katy says so to his face more than once.

Ash makes this worse. She wanted Daemon, wants the old order back, sees Katy as contamination. Her cruelty is not subtle. Public insults. Little shoves. Turning Lesa cold for a while. Andrew backs his sister. Adam is quieter, less sure. Matthew warns Daemon to cut Katy loose. Even Dee, who loves Katy, gets tired and snaps when Katy asks too many questions in front of others. The pressure builds from all sides, not only from monsters.

A fair criticism is that some side characters stay thin here. Lesa gets jokes and loyalty but little history. Katy's mom is kind and overworked and mostly off page. The Thompson family blurs except for Ash's sharp edges. Armentrout is saving pages for Daemon and Katy, Dee and Dawson, light and shadow. If you want a full town, you will feel the thin spots. I did, especially in the middle school chapters where names pile up fast.

School fights, lake light, and the trace that will not fade

The middle of Obsidian runs on proximity. Katy has to stay near Daemon until the trace fades. That means rides to school, study sessions, dinners where they pretend to get along for Dee's sake. It also means sparks. Literally.

Armentrout writes attraction through bickering. Daemon teases Katy about her blog, her garden, her Florida accent. Katy mocks his ego, his shirtless showing off, his habit of appearing in her bedroom by coming through the window instead of using a door like a person. Under it, they watch each other. He notices she rereads when anxious. She notices he checks locks twice. When they finally kiss, it is not soft. Light bursts, windows rattle, things break. Katy glows afterward, brighter to Luxen eyes. The trace, instead of fading, flares.

That kiss matters for plot, not only romance. Every use of power near Katy refreshes the mark. Daemon knows it. He pulls away, then comes back. Katy, who has sworn she will not be jerked around, pulls away, then lets him in. It is messy and teenage and a little frustrating to read. I found myself annoyed at both of them around page 200, then remembered being 17 and annoyed at myself in the same loop. Armentrout captures that loop. Wanting someone who is bad for your safety but good for your honesty.

The lake scene is the calm before worse. Daemon takes Katy out to show her what Luxen can do away from houses. He lights the trees, moves across water, bends light until he almost disappears. For a minute Katy is not scared. She is amazed. She asks if he sparkles, a wink Armentrout drops for readers tired of vampire tropes. He laughs, real laughter. They talk about Bethany again, about whether Dawson might have lived. Then they go home to shouting, because Dee knows Daemon took Katy out and thinks it was reckless. She is right. It was.

School gets harder as the trace brightens. Simon Cutters, a classmate, watches Katy too long. A new guy named Blake shows interest and Daemon goes cold with jealousy and suspicion. Vaughn, a quiet man around town, seems to appear where he should not. Katy feels watched on runs, in the library, at a party in the woods where teenagers drink and pair off. She tells herself she is paranoid. She is not. The Arum have come to this part of West Virginia, drawn by old energy and fresh light.

One more note on the romance, because readers should know what they are getting. There are steamy scenes, but this first book stays mostly at kissing and heavy touching, with heat that cuts off before it goes far. The tension is the point. If you want open door pages, those come later in the series. If you dislike possessive talk, be warned. Daemon says mine, orders Katy to run, grabs her arm. Armentrout usually has Katy push back in the same scene, and Daemon backs off when she draws a line. Still, the pattern may bother some readers. I wished Armentrout had cut two or three of those grabs. The story did not need them. Katy listening to instinct would have been enough.

Obsidian works when running does not

Obsidian the stone enters late and changes everything.

Daemon gives Katy a dagger made of obsidian and tells her to run if Arum come. Obsidian is one of the few materials that can kill Luxen and Arum. It also masks. Wearing it can damp the trace. Carrying it gives a human a chance. Katy practices holding it, hates how heavy it feels, carries it anyway.

The road attack proves why. Daemon drives Katy home from a party and three Arum block the road. They do not look fully human. Shadows pour off them. Cold drops. They want Daemon's energy and they know Katy is marked. Daemon tells Katy to run. She does not. He fights with light, tearing up asphalt, snapping trees, going bright enough to hurt eyes. He kills one. The other two drain him, holding him still while they pull at his light. Katy runs into the fight instead of away and drives the obsidian into one Arum's chest. It shatters into shadow and ash. The third, Baruck, the one who has stalked Katy for weeks, flees when he sees the blade.

It is a strong action chapter because Katy does not suddenly become skilled. She stabs wildly, screams, gets thrown, gets up because Daemon is fading. Daemon, for all his power, gets tired. Nosebleeds. Shaking hands. Needing to go human-shaped to recover. Armentrout keeps costs visible. Power is not free. Light burns out.

After that, Katy wears an obsidian pendant Daemon gives her, a small dark point on a cord. It helps, but Baruck has her scent now in the way Arum track. He wants her because she hurt him and because her trace is rich after so much contact with Daemon. Dee argues they should tell Matthew and let the Defense people handle it. Daemon refuses, because telling means admitting how much power he used near a human and risking Katy being taken. Katy argues she should leave town with her mom. Her mom almost agrees to a trip after hearing about strange men near school. In the end Katy stays, partly to protect her mom from being dragged in, partly because leaving Dee feels wrong, partly because she cannot stand the thought of Daemon facing Baruck alone.

I liked that Katy's reasons are mixed. Too many YA leads get one clean motive. Katy has three messy ones. Love for Dee. Guilt about Dawson and Bethany repeating. And yes, feelings for Daemon she does not want to name. Armentrout does not clean that up. She lets Katy say she is staying and then doubt it on the next page while weeding a garden bed she planted to feel normal.

The book also does good work with DOD fear without turning into a lecture. Matthew warns that if Katy tells anyone, even Lesa, the family could be moved, split, studied. No big speech about rights. Just a tired teacher telling a girl that paperwork can be a cage. Katy believes him because she has seen how easily adults disappear kids into systems after a death. Her dad's illness taught her that hospitals and forms decide where you sleep. That lived detail makes the threat stick more than any alien rule book.

The field, the healing, and choosing to walk away

The last fight starts with bait.

Katy decides Baruck will keep coming for Dee as long as Katy glows near her. So she walks into an open field alone, pendant off, trace bright, daring him to follow. He does. Shadows rise. Cold bites. Daemon arrives in a blast of light, furious and terrified. Dee follows. What happens next is chaotic on purpose. Baruck throws shadow spears. Daemon throws light. Trees catch. Dee shields Katy and gets hurt. Katy screams for them to stop dying for her.

When Baruck wounds Daemon while Daemon shields Katy, Daemon does the one thing he swore he would not do. He pours his light into Katy to heal her, chest to chest, bright and hot. Dee adds hers without thinking. For a second the three of them connect, energies braided. Katy feels their memories, Dawson laughing, Dee crying, Daemon begging her to live. Something in Katy wakes up, a leftover from all those healings and kisses and shared air. She pulls the light through herself and releases it at Baruck in a surge that burns him out completely.

She almost dies doing it. Daemon saves her by giving more of himself, binding them in a way neither fully understands. Afterward their hearts beat in the same rhythm. She can sense him. He can sense her. Her trace does not fade. It changes. Matthew looks shaken when he checks her. Dee cries. Daemon tries to joke and fails.

And here Armentrout makes a choice I respected. Daemon says they should be together now, that the bond means something, that he wants her. Katy says no. Not because she does not care. She does. But she will not accept a relationship built on a mark, a healing, gratitude, or fate. She wants choosing, day after day, without glow forcing it. She tells Daemon to leave her porch, keeps the pendant, and walks inside alone. The book ends with her changed, stronger, grieving what might have been, unwilling to settle.

Is it a tease for book two? Sure. Onyx continues Katy and Daemon directly, and Oblivion later retells these events from Daemon's view. But as an ending, it works. Katy started as a girl who let a move happen to her. She ends as someone who draws a line even when her heart pounds in someone else's rhythm. Her dad's line about not being a bystander lands differently now. Acting includes saying no.

Who should read it? Teens and adults who like romance with banter, aliens hidden in small towns, and heroines who argue back. Fans of Roswell style stories or early Twilight energy but with more humor will feel at home. If you need hard science fiction or dislike love hate dynamics, skip this one. If possessive language bothers you, know it is here and Katy challenges it, but it is still here.

I closed it thinking about Dee most. Her hunger for normal friendship drives half the plot, and her grief for Dawson drives the rest. She invites Katy in, hides the cost, pays it, then asks Katy to stay quiet to protect them all. That is a lot to put on a new friend. Armentrout does not excuse it. She shows a girl who is bright and lonely making a selfish kind choice and living with what follows. I forgave Daemon his rudeness faster than I forgave Dee her silence, which surprised me. Then I kept thinking about Katy in her garden, hands dirty, trying to grow something in rocky soil. That image holds the book for me. New place. Strange light next door. A girl deciding what she will let take root.

FAQ

When was Obsidian published?

Entangled Publishing published it in December 2011. The first paperback runs 292 pages and its ISBN is 9781937044237.

Who are the main characters?

Katy Swartz, Daemon Black and his twin Dee, plus Ash, Andrew, Lesa, and teacher Matthew Gray.

Is Obsidian part of a series?

Yes, it is book one in the Lux series, followed by Onyx. Dawson and Bethany are covered in the prequel Shadows.