Author: Sylvia Day
Source: Requested Review / NetGallery
Genre: Paranormal Romance - Angels, Vampires and Werewolves
Format: ebook - 368 pages
Release Date: October 4th 2011
Author's Website
Adrian Mitchell is a powerful angel leading an elite Special Ops unit of Seraphim. His task is to punish the Fallen-angels who have become vampires-and command a restless pack of indentured lycans. But Adrian has suffered his own punishment for becoming involved with mortals- losing the woman he loves again and again. Now, after nearly two hundred years, he has found her-Shadoe-her soul once more inhabiting a new body, with no memory of him. And this time, he won't let her go.
Rating -
Sexual -
My Review -
The concept of angels, vampires and werewolves living among humans and seeing angels as powerful and sexy beings with raw passion had me very excited to read this book. The book had real potential in the beginning, but the more I read the book the more the world began to unravel, fall apart lose its appeal.
The beginning had a beautiful set up with Adrian running into his beloved Shadoe reincarnated in Lindsay at a chance encounter at an airport. The strong physical attraction between them had so much potential in terms of not only providing the reader with some enjoyable moments reading about their physical encounters, but also getting to know the characters and their emotional makeup. Unfortunately the world that the author tried to build up crumbled due to inconsistencies in some key plotlines.
As I read the book I kept finding inconsistencies and hypocritical situations that it made it difficult for me to develop a connection to Adrian and feel sympathetic for him despite his physical appeal. Perhaps what made it difficult to accept were the issues surrounding the nature of angels and the reason behind Adrian's hatred of vampires.
There were several contradictions that were mentioned in various parts of the book that made the world confusing to follow. At one point in the book Adrian states that angels are not to experience mortal love, but then later states that they can have sex. This leads to the confusing nature of what is happening with Adrian. He is angel who fell in love with a mortal and had sex with her and as his punishment his love is reincarnated over and over again throughout the centuries. Yet the fact has been stated that the consequence for an angel falling in love and having sex with a mortal is having their wings taken and turned into a vampire. Later on one of his closest angels confesses to him that she has fallen in love with a lycan which results in the angel and her love being hunted down. However, Adrian makes the other angels know, without a doubt, that he is having sex with Lindsay. It is these contractions that made my head spin at times and made it difficult to feel for Adrian because I felt he was being hypocritical.
Despite the flaws in the world building the book will appeal to both paranormal romance and urban fantasy fans. The series has the formula for some amazing interactions to develop between the characters and action that will please urban fantasy fans. I can see that the series has the potential to keep the readers on the edge of their seats, but the inconsistencies need to be cleaned up so they don't throw off the flow and interest in the books.
