Demon's Fall by Karalynn Lee -- Review (**18+over material)

 

Demon's Fall

by Karalynn Lee

Publication Date: 10/25/10

Rating: 3 / 5 Stars

Thank you Netgalley & Carina Press for the electronic ARC.

Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads):

 

When Kenan, an incubus, finds a caged angel for sale in the Hellsgate marketplace, he sees her as a challenge. Certain that his skills in seduction will work as well on a heavenly creature as they do on mortal women, he buys Jahel, intent on having her soul as a novelty in his collection.

Knowing he must gain Jahel's trust if she is to come to his bed willingly, Kenan treats her more as his guest than as his slave. When she reveals what brought her to the mouth of Hell in the first place-retrieving the soul of a young girl she was guarding-he even offers to help her complete her mission.

Though he has promised Jahel freedom, Kenan soon realizes she has captured his heart instead. And as their passion for one another grows, they find themselves caught in a struggle between Heaven and Hell, one that will lead them to the very edge of the apocalypse...

  

Review:

Demon’s Fall is a sweet, almost novella-length paranormal erotica story where Kenan, an incubus, purchases a captured angel, Jahel, with the intent to collect her soul through his incubus powers – sex of course. Kenan collects souls, which once extracted from a person/being, become token coins. With the purchase of Jahel, he sees her angel soul as the ultimate soul that would be in his collection. These initial plans, however, do not go as planned as he becomes more and more enamored with Jahel’s physique, and also after he decides to be honest and truly trying to gain Jahel’s trust by offering to help Jahel with her mission which brought her to Hellsgate in the first place.

I found the angel-demon relationship and dynamic to be an interesting storyline – and I especially was fond of the originality of the setting and some parts of the mythology / Biblical references. The author provided very well written descriptions of the places and different characters and beings encountered in the story. The story’s time period is a bit unclear, but from Kenan’s mentions of his previous conquers and souls collected, it sounds like it could be anywhere from (what I think) the Middle Ages up to early/mid 1700’s. Though when this story takes place does not really have much, if any, significance to the story.

I really did enjoy reading this story. Though I thought it was going to have more elements of erotica in it, the scenes and elements that are found in the story are well written and fun and exhilarating to read. Though this book is put under the “erotica” genre, it pretty much only went as far as soft-core erotica, so for those that are looking for steamy sex scenes between angels and demons in every other page, this would not be a story for you. I’m a sucker for the forbidden love element, so the story delivered with Kenan and Jahel falling for each other. The ending was especially adorable, and a happy ending is always a plus.

 

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

 

City of Fallen Angels 

by Cassandra Clare

Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads):

City of Fallen Angels takes place two months after the events of City of Glass. In it, a mysterious someone’s killing the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle and displaying their bodies around New York City in a manner designed to provoke hostility between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, leaving tensions running high in the city and disrupting Clary’s plan to lead as normal a life as she can — training to be a Shadowhunter, and pursuing her relationship with Jace. As Jace and Clary delve into the issue of the murdered Shadowhunters, they discover a mystery that has deeply personal consequences for them — consequences that may strengthen their relationship, or rip it apart forever.

Meanwhile, internecine warfare among vampires is tearing the Downworld community apart, and only Simon — the Daylighter who everyone wants on their side — can decide the outcome; too bad he wants nothing to do with Downworld politics. Love, blood, betrayal and revenge: the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels. 

Review:

Where to begin...

Though I really enjoyed reading the first three books (aka the complete trilogy - not this "oh wait, let's write 3 more books for the series"), I was sincerely disappointed with City of Fallen Angels.

From the first few pages of the book, I thought it was going to focus on Simon and dealing with his new life, and vampire-sexiness. But no. I had to endure more "let's smash the happily ever after" between Jace and Clary. There are only so many times you can flip-flop from "he loves me, he loves me not" and "I live for her and love her, I should forbid myself to love her and even look at her". In my opinion, this scenario was already a pretty big plot line in the last three books, and like some other reviewers commented: you, Ms. Clare are over-doing; flogging a dead horse. Seriously, essentially every time this drama between Jace and Clary happened in CoFA (which was hmm like 80% of the book, give or take), I was rolling my eyes mentally cringing at Ms. Clare and skimming those parts of the book.

Oh, and because clearly we don't have enough soap opera love drama already, Simon has to deal with his lady issues -- and it really seemed just to be "pfht" and inconsequential.

There were two other big things that bothered me:

1) the growing biblical theme and introduction of Lilith:
While I thought that the first three Mortal Instruments series did not over do the demons/angels/heaven/hell topics and plots, I was thoroughly annoyed with this book taking those plots/topics one step too many. Ms. Clare should have really not went beyond the world and settings she had already created in the first 3 books. Isn't there enough material (aka monsters and races of characters) already within the mortal instruments world that could pose sinister plots and such?

2) the title:
"City of Fallen Angels" -- before reading the book, I assumed that the story line might be about *gasp* fallen angels, devils, or types of "demons" we had not yet been introduced to. Ummm... yeah.... there were no "Fallen Angels" in this book. The phrase is not even mentioned in the book.
I can guess some of you are about to argue "Lilith is a fallen angel" -- No, she is not. Her story was that she was Adam's first wife, gone done somethin' bad, and got kicked out of the garden of eden and into Hell - thus becoming a demon.
Ms. Clare, where are these Fallen Angels? With a title like that, I think this book might have had potential-success if it had a plot line and story involving or revolving around something to do with fallen angels. But alas, it fell well short of being a successful attempt at a continuation of the mortal instruments series.

Rating: 2 / 5 Stars

 

Crescendo (Hush Hush #2) by Becca Fitzpatrick

Crescendo (Hush Hush #2)

by Becca Fitzpatrick

Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads):

Nora Grey's life is still far from perfect. Surviving an attempt on her life wasn't pleasant, but atleast she got a guardian angel out of it: a mysterious, magnetic, gorgeous guardian angel. But, despite his role in her life, Patch has been acting anything but angelic. He's more elusive than ever and even worse, he's started spending time with Nora's arch-enemy, Marcie Millar.

Nora would have hardly noticed Scott Parnell, an old family friend who has moved back to town, if Path hadnt been acting so distant. Even with Scott's totally infuriating attitude Nora finds herself drawn to him - despite her lingering feeling that he's hiding something.

Haunted by images of her murdered father, and questioning whether her nephilim bloodline has anything to do with his death, Nora puts herself increasingly in dangerous situations as she desperatly searches for answers. But maybe some things are better left buried, because the truth could destroy everything - and everyone - she trusts.

Review:

While I found this to be a fun read, I felt it fell short of being on par with how good Hush Hush was. I felt the author really did not need to have THAT MUCH background and recapping of the Hush Hush story and its characters. Please, give me a little more credit for my memory skills.

I found Nora's character in this book to be a bit unbearable and long-drawn-out to the point of being boring and super predictable - with her crushed happily ever after with Patch and her naivety of the situations she is put through and in that completely blindside her and manipulate her.

I'll confess I still have a character-crush on Patch -- but it's not for his personality, purely his looks and angel status. I am a bit intrigued to see what happens to his character in the coming book, and see how the cliff-hanger at the end of the book plays out. And I will say that the pace was good and the book overall was well-written, it just failed to "wow" me and the soap opera love drama got to be a little much at times.

PLEASE stop making Nora have the intelligence of a gnat and malleability of a helpless, totally air-headed person in the next book - then, perhaps I really consider reading it.

Rating: 3 / 5 Stars

Angelfire (Angelfire #1) by Courtney Allison Moulton

Angelfire (Angelfire #1)

by Courtney Allison Moulton

Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads):

This debut, the first novel in a trilogy, is achingly romantic, terrifying, and filled with blistering action.

When seventeen-year-old Ellie starts seeing reapers - monstrous creatures who devour humans and send their souls to Hell - she finds herself on the front lines of a supernatural war between archangels and the Fallen and faced with the possible destruction of her soul.

A mysterious boy named Will reveals she is the reincarnation of an ancient warrior, the only one capable of wielding swords of angelfire to fight the reapers, and he is an immortal sworn to protect her in battle. Now that Ellie's powers have been awakened, a powerful reaper called Bastian has come forward to challenge her. He has employed a fierce assassin to eliminate her - an assassin who has already killed her once.

While balancing her dwindling social life and reaper-hunting duties, she and Will discover Bastian is searching for a dormant creature believed to be a true soul reaper. Bastian plans to use this weapon to ignite the End of Days and to destroy Ellie's soul, ending her rebirth cycle forever. Now, she must face an army of Bastian's most frightening reapers, prevent the soul reaper from consuming her soul, and uncover the secrets of her past lives - including truths that may be too frightening to remember.

Review:

I thought Ellie's character was fantastic in this book. So spunky and stubborn - just the way I like my heroines :) I also liked Will a lot, though I think I would have liked a better, more detailed description of him since I couldn't always picture him in my mind as I read. It would also be really cool if Ms. Moulton included in the next book a sketch of the tattoo will has on his shoulder/back. 

So - angelfire is the title, so yes, there are angels involved. I read this book right after reading Unearthly, so it was interesting to see how Ms. Moulton twisted and created her paranormal angel story from what I will call "the starting material": archangels, fallen angels, demons, nephilim, the coming of the second war brought on by Lucifer against God -- I think you catch my drift. I liked the premise of reapers, and the offspring of the good fallen angels vs the offspring of the bad fallen angels (who've aligned themselves with Lucifer and killing humans to doom those souls to Hell). 

(Side note: I love reapers in the story especially since I am a HUGE fan of Dead Like Me (old TV show about reapers and their not-so-glamorous, but hilarious everyday lives)).

The way Ellie's school and her friends, and friends' cars, are described evoke frighteningly identical high school memories I have. Yeah, it was sadly one of those schools where you could tell the student parking lot and teacher parking lot apart by the grand number of ritzy cars in the student lot. >_< No worries, I was not among those kind of people. 

The book I have to be honest was hard to get into at first, with the storyline kind of dragging until the weird mishaps Ellie has and Will's appearance. And while I liked that Ms. Moulton put some of Ellie's previous lives' memories throughout the book, I felt that it staggered the story and did not really unravel all that much past knowledge and experience to Ellie quickly. 

Loved the action - swords with fire that can kill anything evil? Heck YES! And there is plenty of it throughout the book, and was pleased with the amount of action and kind of action in the story.

Being a YA novel, the romance was very PG so *shrug* that did not do much for me. I do think Ellie and Will as a couple is cute, but now that it's become this forbidden thing (reminding me a lot of Ever/Damen romance from Alyson Noel's Evermore series), I feel that in the coming sequels there will be all this long, drawn out drama over them still loving each other, but they can't give into because the archangels (and God probably) forbid it. *sigh*

Rating: 3 / 5 Stars

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

Unearthly

by Cynthia Hand

Synopsis (courtesy of GoodReads):

In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees. . .

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what it is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place--and out of place, at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make--between honesty and deciet, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Review:

The premise of the book was a little confusing – with these angel half-breeds and quarter-angel descendents having a set job to do as their destiny, at some point during their early years (well that’s what it seemed like for the characters involved). Granted, the storyline put an interesting twist on the hot paranormal books focusing on angels, I found it to be not a very enticing or engaging read. I will, however, say that it was nice to have a book involving angels and their offspring, and NOT have references to nephilim come up really.

I felt there was a lack of character development in Clara and Christian, though we do learn a lot about Tucker as the story progresses. And Clara’s mom – her character bugged the heck out of me with her being all “oh sweetie, you have to figure it out on your own, all in good time,” even though her mom should be the one helping her through this transition into her powers and foretold destiny, and not her friend Angela.

Another aspect of the book that I did not appreciate all that much was how much of a cliffhanger the end of the book leaves the reader. The ending really does not resolve much of anything, but rather poses and creates more questions and dilemmas than concluding or solving the issues already posed in the book. For instance, Chrisitian and his gig, Clara and her destined love-or-chosen love, and Angela & her Italian bf & what Angela’s been learning in Italy.

With the writing style being very basic and uncomplicated, as well as very little sexual tensions or adult type of situations actually being addressed in the book, I think this would be an alright book for pre-teen, young YA readers to read as a paranormal, specifically angel-topic supernatural novel to read, to enter into the genre of YA paranormal.

 


Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars

The Fallen: Volume 2 (Aerie & Reckoning) -- Review

  The Fallen: Volume 2 (Aerie & Reckoning) 

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

** spoiler alert ** Sniegoski's "The Fallen: Volume 2 - Aerie & Reckoning" is the sequel (actually the third and fourth book in The Fallen series) to Volume 1.

I think that Volume 2 of this series is well written, in the sense that it does a good job of wrapping up the storyline; however, I think that the dialogue and plot was just way over the top cliche. Aaron is finally coming to terms with his status as a Nephillim, more specifically his status as "the prophesized one" who has the a ...more Sniegoski's "The Fallen: Volume 2 - Aerie & Reckoning" is the sequel (actually the third and fourth book in The Fallen series) to Volume 1.

I think that Volume 2 of this series is well written, in the sense that it does a good job of wrapping up the storyline; however, I think that the dialogue and plot was just way over the top cliche. Aaron is finally coming to terms with his status as a Nephillim, more specifically his status as "the prophesized one" who has the ability to act as a messenger of God and has the power to forgive fallen angels, allowing them to return to Heaven. After Aaron, Gabriel and Camael's last encounter with Verchiel, the commanding angel of The Powers (who is adamant to follow through with his mission to eliminate all nephillims from Earth), they stumble upon Aerie. Aerie is a hidden, always moving location that is a haven for fallen angels and nephillim. Meanwhile, Verchiel continues to plot - capturing Lucifer and tracking down the Malakim, angels who are essentially extensions of God on Earth. Verchiel methodically tracks down and kill the Malakim in order to retrieve from them forbidden knowledge that God has entrusted with them. Verchiel has taken the strikes from God as signs of appeasement with Verchiel's work and goals. Instead of doing God's bidding, Verchiel is serving his own goals. And in this book, he turns his attention to undoing the word of God, and release Hell from it's imprisonment inside Lucifer. Thus, Aaron's new goal and duty as the savior of fallen angels and nephillim is to prevent Verchiel from releasing Hell on all of humanity.

I thought the attempt at character development for Velma was weak, and would have rather learned more about Camael or Lucifer's past and wanderings on Earth. Overall, while I was content with the story and how things wrapped up, I can't rate this book more than 2 stars because of it's oversimplified dialogue. 

Rating: 2/5 Stars

The Fallen: Volume 1 (The Fallen & Leviathan) -- Review

The Fallen: Volume 1 (The Fallen & Leviathan) 
by Thomas E. Sniegoski

Aaron Corbet has just had his eighteenth birthday. Things are going relatively normal at school on this day - well, except for this massive painful headache he has through out his school day and during his job at a vet clinic. As soon as Aaron's headache becomes unbearable, it all of a sudden is gone.

And that's when strange things start to happen. Aaron begins to understand and speak any and every language (even dog's language much to the chagrin of his faithful Laborador, Gabriel). His developing powers as a Nephilim are attracting a few fallen angels to help him, but also have but him on The Power's radar, who seek him out to destroy the abomination that are Nephilim. Oh, and not to put any pressure on Aaron, but he is believed to be and expected to be "the prophesied ONE," the Nephilim who will act as a messenger and bridge between fallen angels on earth and God's will/Heaven, and will have the ability to admonish fallen angels so that they may be forgiven and return to Heaven.

While I liked The Fallen (the first part of The Fallen:Volume 1), I did not like the second part, Leviathan. It was not as engaging nor as interesting to read as The Fallen, and almost acted like a filler story. The only redeeming part of Leviathan I believe was that we find out more about what has happened to Stevie, Aaron's little brother. 

Rating: 2/5 Stars