One-sentence summary: The Biblical Apocalypse has begun, and a mage fights the dark powers.

Why did you get this book?: The completely ridiculous cover and my weakness for novels about dystopias, the Apocalypse, and Catholic mythology.

Do you like the cover?: Yes! How can you resist?

Did you enjoy the book?: Enjoy is the wrong word; I read it with great relish -- the plot is fairly fun but at someone point, the author seemed to lose control of the novel. It was like a train wreck with angels, sexual tension, and Biblical references. ( )

Great book, 1st in its series. It takes place after the Apocolpyse, where some humans survived, although Seraphs (aka Angels) are still among the people and the Most High rules the earth. There are also mages, one of which is the center of these books. There are demons as well as their creations. Demons attack humans and mages often, especially mages. Anyways, it really turned out to be an engaging and interesting world with lively characters and some really nearly erotic scenes. :) A must-read. ( )

This book was not my cup of tea. Overly purple. I only made it to the point that the main character fantasized about her love interest holding a bale of hay above his head, naked. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am hoping to get ahold of the next two in the series soon. Well written story with characters of depth. A very different sort of apocalypse story from what I've ever seen before. ( )

First of a post-apocalyptic fantasy series that features Thorn, an unlicensed stone mage living in a small Appalachian town. As far as she knows, she is the ONLY mage out there living outside of an Enclave, and to be found out means certain death for her. She, along with several friends, owns and operates a gem and jewelry store while trying to hide the fact that she is indeed mage, and not human. When her ex-husband is kidnapped, she gets involved in trying to find him and realizes after a time that he was taken by forces of Darkness. I really like the post-apocalyptic ‘world’ of this book and the premise for it, but a couple of things were quite annoying. The first is that mages, while able to have sex and mate with humans, actually go “into heat” around other races (kylens and seraphs) and the author described this mage-heat at great length and in many places. I guess she thought it really sexed the book up, but to me, someone in heat without control over their sexual urges and instincts is just plain not sexy.

There were also several other things that just didn’t add up. For example, as soon as one of her business partners sees these certain scars she has, and gets a good look at the amulets she wears under and within her clothing to disguise her glowing mage appearance, he recognizes her as a mage. How is it that she was able to hide that fact from her ex-husband when he saw every inch of her many times over and surely encountered the amulets during physical contact? Etc. I will read more in this series because, as I said, the premise is great and I like the main character and the writing style, but less of the going into heat thing would not go amiss. ( )