In Singh's alternate universe, Archangels rule the world and are the creatures who create vampires. In return, the vamps have to serve the angel for 100 years. Some vampires however, object and go on the run, killing and causing mayhem. Enter the Hunters, who go after these renagades. Elena is hunter born and is considered the best hunter in New York. When an archangel goes bad, she is called in by the Archangel of New York. Strong and fierce, Elena is no match for the sexy angel who has hired her.

I really liked this book. It took a bit for me to get into it, but once I got the world she was building it was great. This is the first in a series. ( )

Angels' Blood by Nalini Singh turned out to be more of a romance than an urban fantasy. It was SFF type with angels being some kind of winged super beings, but not associated with heaven.

It was set in modern day NYC. The angels made vampires as their minions and in repayment the vamps had to serve the angel for 100 years. Some tried to run out on their contracts, so the vampire hunters would find them and return them. Once vamps filled their contracts they were free to live like humans, as long as they didn't kill people.

The story has the Archangel of NYC contacting the POV, the best vampire hunter in the Guild to hunt something different and worse than a vampire. Of course sparks fly between them and there is a lot of flashing eyes and heaving loins.

It was a quick read, the writing wasn't bad, some good characters and a mildly interesting story, though with lots of cliches. ( )

Suffers from Anne Bishop syndrome. Singh created a vivid, amazing world with her first series, and Angel's Blood pales in comparison. Raphael is a bully at best, a mind-rapist at worst. No thank you. ( )

General Background
Angel's Blood is the first in Nalini Singh's new paranormal romance/urban fantasy set that features angels, archangels and vampires (and the people who hunt them). The angels are interesting beings... closer to, say, Gabriel in the film The Prophecy than they are to the fluffy guardian beings found in New Age bookstore pins.

The Characters
Set in New York, Angel's Blood posits a world divided up into territories that each belong to one of the cadre of ten archangels - a cadre to which our male lead, Raphael, belongs (and no, it doesn't take too long before the name associations with a certain snarky turtle wear off and I can start appreciating Raphael for the character he is). In this universe, vampires are made by angels - granted immortality in return for 100 years of services - we don't find out why or how they're made from the angels' viewpoint till towards the end of the book, but I like the originality of the premise.

Our female lead, Elena, meanwhile, is a hunter - born and trained to track down vampires who get their immortality, and then decide to default on their part of the bargain. She's kind of part Buffy, part Anita Blake - a lass with a tragic past, and a talent for 'scenting' vampires that makes her a better hunter than anyone else.

The Plot
The storyline of Angel's Blood revolves around one of the cadre of ten, the archangel Uram, going mad for reason, or reasons, unknown (at least at the beginning of the book). A rogue archangel is a truly terrifying thing (to quote Topher in Dollhouse... "blood, screaming, dying") - more so since the longer he's allowed to remain free, the more powerful he becomes. Raphael takes responsibility for tracking and stopping Uram, and brings Elena in on the hunt because her ability to 'scent' vampires (and, we discover, archangels) makes her the only one who can track Uram. And the story develops from there.

I should mention that especialy in comparison to, say, later Dresden Files books (or even to the Psy/Changeling set), Angel's Blood has a fairly linear, simple plot, with no real subplots twisting and winding their way around the A storyline. But that's not unusual for paranormals, so I mention it as a 'thing' rather than as necessarily a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing'.

Good Stuff
First up, I'm definitely impressed by the world Nalini Singh has created here. It's a different enough spin on the whole vampire genre that it doesn't feel like 'yet another vampire book' - while still being reasonably true to what we know of vampires (they don't, for example, sparkle in sunlight). And the angels and archangels are fairly cool as well. They're not the incredibly dark big bads that a couple of reviews of the book I'd read painted them as - they're basically just politicians, working at their own individual versions of powermongering - some for their own glory, and some (like Raphael) because a weak archangel is an archangel who starts losing control and ends up with nasty messes to clean up.

Elena as a character feels much like any of the other kickass heroines I've come across in paranormal romances and urban fantasies before. She's smart, she's strong, she's capable, she banters, she has a nasty backstory, and she's able to hold her own in a fight - all generally good things in the Starfireverse. That being said, there's nothing that really sets her apart for me either.

Finally, I'm going to put the gradual buildup sexual tension between the two leads and its culminations fully into the 'Good Stuff' column - Ms Singh has come a long way since the beginning of the Psy/Changeling series - she's not afraid to write characters and interactions with major power differentials going on in the sex scenes (and then clearly delineate them from non-consensual scenes by showing, rather than telling, where the boundaries lie), and some of the sexual banter between Elena and Raphael is just hot.

Bad Stuff
There's nothing about Angel's Blood that had me gritting my teeth and threatening to throw the book against the wall, which is good... but at the same time, having heard it repeatedly hailed as this 'revolutionary new series' that was 'darker and grittier than anything in the Psy/Changeling set' and would 'change the way I thought of angels for good' (don't ask me where I picked up those phrases, because I have absolutely no idea - reading too many reviews, I suspect), I actually found it a little disappointing if only in terms of not quite living up to the hype. It's a fun, action-packed supernatural chick-pr0n / urban fantasy read, and if I'd gone in without any expectations, I probably would have enjoyed it. As it is, I can't help feeling just slightly let down (pre-forming expectations'll do that to you, alas)

Ratings and Recommendations
As mentioned above, Angel's Blood was overall, a simple, enjoyable, reasonably sexy read; and if I hadn't come to it with such high expectations, I probably wouldn't have had anything to bitch about in the Bad Stuff section. It's worth trying if you're into urban fantasy or paranormal romances and want something a little different. Also, I'd imagine that anyone who's enjoyed the later books in Ms Singh's Psy/Changeling set would probably enjoy this - while the setting is technically different, and the characters are completely new, the overall feel of the world and the way the characters interact within it (to me, at least) is fairly similar.

I think when all's said and done, I'd given this one a 7.5/10. A fun few hours of reading, definitely - just not quite the 9/10 that I was hoping for based the reactions of other readers. ( )

I'm a fan of Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series, but after hearing about this series (angels? vampires (ugh!)? bounty hunters?), I was sure this was going to be an absolute mess. Suffice it to say, I was pleasantly surprised. The characters are well-developed, and the interactions between humans, vampires, and angels were fascinating. I'll be looking forward to the next in this series! ( )