SchizoBC Review - Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh

Before you sit and do the math, yes I finished another book in 4 days.  I read a lot, I read often, and I read pretty fast...when it's interesting. 

Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh

 

It is strange that my first 2 reviews here have an angel theme, but that's how my luck rolled when I finally got to borrow the ebooks from the library. 

Archangel's Kiss is book 2 in the Guild Hunter's series, and I did read book 1, Angel's Blood, earlier this year. 

When I read a book in a series that even remotely entertains me, I do feel the need to read the other books in that series.  Don't ask me why, because I certainly would not be able to tell you.  Maybe it's a slight compulsive disorder, maybe I'm just weird.

Anyway, in Angels' Blood you meet Vampire Hunter extraordinaire Elena Deveraux, a member of the Guild Hunters.  In a world where vampires live alongside human kind, work for angels, and are Made by angels, the Guild Hunters are basically contract bounty hunters for any angel who has a rouge vampire on the loose.  Those rouge vampires are dangerous when not leashed by the angel who has them under contract.  So, when an angel has a vampire problem, they hire a Guild Hunter, and Elena is the best.  Born with the natural skills for a Hunter, Elena is soon contracted by the dangerously sexy Archangel of the city, Raphael. But this time, it's not a wayward vampire she has to track...it's an Archangel gone bad. 

Sucked up in the midst of a killing spree, Elena finds herself in an exceedingly dangerous position...and on top of that, falling for the Archangel Raphael as well.  SPOILER ALERT!  In the end of Angels' Blood, Elena connects in a way with her archangel in a way no other human has ever done before...She becomes the first Made angel, made through the love Raphael has surprisingly, wholeheartedly given.

In Archangel's Kiss, Elena wakes from a year long coma to find herself attached to a new pair of wings.  But she's weak and as a newly made immortal, with a mortal heart, she can still die.  Almost immediately, her handsome and dangerous lover, Raphael, breaks the news that she must recover and prepare for a flight to Beijing, where the archangel Lijuan is throwing a ball in her honor. Ancient and without conscience, Lijuan's power lies with the dead.  She has the ability to raise the dead and keep them sustained for as long as she is entertained by them.  And she is planning something sinister for Elena...

Elena begins rigorous training to strengthen her muscles and to learn how to get along with her new wings.  Amidst training, she has to once again use her Hunter's skills to find the person responsible for a series of beatings, kidnappings, and deaths all aimed to destroy her.  Raphael and Elena know Lijuan is planning something for the ball, and have to play along with her games in the weeks leading up to it, as she tries to scare up weaknesses in the newly made angel.

The ball is such a small part of this book, it almost makes the story anti-climactic, but it was a lot of action and surprising.  It wasn't the best written story, some things seemed to be thrown together in an attempt for explanation, but the plot flowed well, and the action was never ending. Even, the steamy kind.  There is quite a bit of passion exchanged in between the lovers, and although it goes into some detail, it's not nearly as risque as other stories I've read.  I'm listing the third book, Archangel's Consort, in my To Read list and look forward to reading it.  Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book, I love it when authors come up with different concepts on the supernatural/mystical...I give both Guild Hunter books 4 stars. 

Schizophrenic Book Club Review - Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

I've decided to begin a Book Club...the members being Me, Myself, and I.  It will be hereinafter referred to as the Schizophrenic Book Club or SchizoBC for short.  I have managed to read an immense volume of books in the entire 26 years of my existence, with 21 years of actually being able to read, about half of that being in the last 5 years, and the majority of that in the past year and a half (I find I read twice as fast with my e-reader).  It seems only logical that I begin to write reviews.  The club is highly exclusive, no other persons are allowed to become members unless they tend to stick to a highly regimented diet of fantasy fiction, science fiction, horror, mystery and the occasional historical or religious non-fiction. 

While I cannot go back and review any of the numerous books I have previously read, it's an overall fact that I probably will not give many bad reviews.  Mostly because if a book is that bad, I won't continue reading it.  Another reason we don't give many bad reviews is because due to the nature of the book clubs general genre and type of literature most prominent in the reading list, we enjoy stories (even mediocre ones) for the sheer entertainment value.  While many serious literature fanatics pin point the errors in prose and plot problems of the author, I tend to have a more innocent approach to each story, absorbing words and mentally transforming them into a video presentation in my head and getting lost in the movie so to speak. Only when the author has done an incredibly poor job of pulling the plot together and/or character development, unanswered questions, etc. do I step out of that world and think to myself..."well that makes no sense".

Another reason my book club discourages other members is because I like to encourage people to read books despite the reviews.  Reading reviews should only be used to help you find other books that you will enjoy, as most reviewers have lists of books they enjoy and more often than not will follow some kind of pattern.  In most cases you can discern a persons personality by that list of books.  If you find yourself agreeing with someones general reviews on a number of books you may look to see what books you haven't read that they've also enjoyed, chances are you will enjoy those as well.  Enough chatter...on to the review.

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Angelology managed to catch my eye on various lists that have been generated (probably by a computer) as a 'reccommended' read in accordance with other books I have enjoyed, bought, or read.  A whole secret sect dedicated to studying and protecting the world from the secret offspring of angels and man? Intriguing. Add in some biblical references and ancient mythology and you got your story.  Maybe...

This Ms Trussoni's debut novel, and honestly I had a difficult time staying in the story.  My usual approach of letting myself become absorbed into the story has not worked in this case.  The premise of the story revolves around this secret organization of angelologists who not only study angels but have made it their mission to protect human kind from their hybrid children, the nephilim, who have endeavored to gain the power to rule over and enslave humans.  The concept is there, and it is quite brilliant, but the execution of the story is lacking.

The story begins in present time, 1999, and starts off following a young nun, Sister Evangeline, who as the convent's secretary comes across an intriguing letter from a researcher, Verlaine, who is inquiring about an unknown link between the convent and the late Mrs Abigail Rockefeller.  Upon confirming this link, the two are then unimaginatively thrust into a war decades in between this secret sect of angelologists and the nephilim. 

The story backtracks to pre-WW2; an angelologist, Gabrielle, who is Evangeline's maternal grandmother, becomes dangerously intertwined within the nephilim society infiltrating one of their prominent families, the Grigori. This leads to an expedition to the cave where the angels, who fathered the nephilim and cast down from heaven, were imprisoned until judgment day. And where a historical, mythical object of biblical lore was first collected by the angelologists who entrusted its safe keeping to Mrs Rockefeller who has taken its hidden location with her to the grave. Or, so they believed.

This story also follows Percival Grigori, the nephilim with whom Gabrielle had her dangerous affair.  He suffers from an unknown debilitating illness and is searching for the missing object to be used to heal him. (Here I'm confused, and see no reason why his story made any contributions to the main plot)

In present time, Evangeline and Verlaine continue to uncover truths about Evangeline's history, and in a weakly combined "Da Vinci Code" style series of puzzles, they quickly uncover keys to the possible location of the missing object.  Their discoveries lead to a race to collect this object, which the nephilim would kill to possess, that potentially has the power to create or destroy the world as it is known.  

The problem I had with this book is, nothing is explained.  Too many characters are introduced without the proper background information, you don't know why any of the characters act the way they do.  Why would Evangeline, with 11 years of service to the convent begin questioning their ways, lie to another nun? Too many questions are left unanswered, how did angelology become a profession for example, how did they recruit?  The entertainment value is there, the plot has many, many kinks. And whoever edited this book did a poor job as well.  Many minor mistakes were noted that caused a disruption in the flow of the story.  And the end! In my head, the words..."UGH...WHAT?!" appeared.  The end...violently piecemealed in such a fashion that explains nothing.  It left me severely disappointed.  The plot is left open ended, although the story seems to end, there are far too many questions at the end than my usual, "What's going to happen to this character"...

The story, when it flowed well, was entertaining and enrapturing. I enjoyed parts of the book, and disliked parts.  The forced love interest between Evangeline and Verlaine was childish, it was more like 2 teenagers, trying to figure out if the other liked them rather than the mature adults they were suppose to be. Overall, 2 stars. Sad, I hardly ever rate books less than 3 stars, but this book was a disappointment for as interesting the plot could have been.