Charouth is trying to redeem herself after a 2,000 year
old love affair got her demoted from Heaven’s elite. She is now poised to
reclaim her position as she searches for Artefacts that could be the keys to
Satan’s prison
Only Hell has their own agents searching for these relics – including Azazel, her old, long missing lover.
This book has a lot of intriguing elements. We have a lot
of angelic politics with the Archangels clearly following their own agendas and
Charouth being caught in the political machinations of her superiors. We have a
world that has a number of mythologies and something clearly epic beginning with
the Norse and the Titans at war – a conflict that catches Charouth in the cross
fire.
We have a fanatical cult who both revere angels – then judge
Charouth for not meeting their angelic ideal which is another fascinating
element that begs for development
And we have a world where the supernatural rubs elbows –
up to and including the Angels and the Fallen interacting. They’re not exactly
friendly, but the overt antagonism that you’d expect is definitely lacking.
There’s a lot here that could be developed and I was really looking forward to
discovering it all as Charouth and Azazel competed to find an important
artefact
This potential is just lost, however. Because 80% of
everything Charouth and Azazel think about is each other. Over and over and
over and over again we’re “treated” to lined, paragraphs, entire pages of how
hot/sexy/yummy the other was, how good they were together, how much they missed
each other, how important the relationship was to them, how it was Charouth’s
first relationship (because of course he had to be more experienced than her)
and generally the many many ways and times they want to have lots of hot sex.
This is then mixed with lots and lots of Azazel being
super jealous because in the TWO
THOUSAND YEARS they’ve been apart Charouth has allowed another man to touch
her. The very idea, how could she not just wait for him forever and ever and
ever! No, really, he expected her to wait. He’s amazingly jealous with lots of
planned vengeance against another angel for sleeping with Charouth and even
having an epic temper tantrum because she is wearing a leather bracelet he
assumes her lover bought it for her and how very dare he!
On top of this Azazel devotes a ridiculous amount of time to planning how to avenge Charouth when anyone wrongs her. Or how to protect her. Charouth is an angel. Charouth is one of the elite – that means she’s second only to the Archangels in terms of angelic important. She does not need Azazel to protect her avenge her or otherwise be the big strong man for her. Stop this.
