The war against Heaven has just ended – with Lucifer
striking Michael down and his soul being imprisoned in Hell. Azael,
instrumental in defeating Michael, is eager to rise within Lucifer’s councils
and reach the upper echelons of demonhood
Pen, his twin sister and fellow fallen angel, is not
nearly so keen. She left Heaven because its censorship, its rigidity, its lack
of thought and questioning was too much for her – she’s not thrilled that Hell
seems to be little better
But Lucifer is determined to make her fall in line – and he
has a task for the twins: the corruption of Adam
I was rather surprised by this book’s length. As a story
between book 1 and 2, I expected a novella of some kind, but this book kept
going on. And on. And on and on.
Yeah… that’s kind of not a good sign.
I’m not saying it was a bad book – because it wasn’t, not
even close. It was just… an unnecessary book. After reading Ignite we know several things about Pen
and Azael. Azael is evil, short tempered, impetuous and desperate to get in
Lucifer’s good books. Pen is extremely conflicted about this whole Hell thing,
she fell because she disagreed in keeping mankind ignorant of language (and
ignorant in general), she found Heaven dictatorial, censorious and unreasonable
– so she fell but found Hell to be no better and she’s not willing to jump on
the “yay Lucifer” train but is dragged along because she has nowhere else to go
and because she has an almost creepy attachment to her brother.
And in Entice we’re
shown that Azael is short tempered, impetuous and desperate to get into Lucifer’s
good books. While Pen is conflicted, not happy with Heaven but really not sold
on Hell either, but is dragged further into it because of her almost creepy
attachment to her brother.
Both stories are good. Both stories develop the
characters well. Both stories show someone who is deep and nuanced with many
lairs with a joyous love of language woven into them. The conflict is really
well presented, the pressures on Pen shown excellently. I can’t overstate how
well presented Pen’s emotional conflict and motivations are presented in both
stories.
But we didn’t need both stories to tell us the same
thing, to excellently portray the same emotional conflict and torn priorities.
It was so well done the first time, it didn’t need to be excellently done the
second time.
