Ok, I realize the genre of paranormal romance comes with tropes. To wit, caveman behaviour from macho men, and women who are somewhere between annoyed and repulsed, but sexually attracted to the possessive chauvinists anyway.

I've recently read a few PNRs, and although I haven't found one yet that wasn't at least annoying at times, I managed to mostly ignore the typically disrespect the hero somehow seems to have to show the heroine, and enjoyed the rest of the book.

But seriously. Angels' blood is completely off the charts. This is not some stupid possessiveness which the hero can't help because of being a werewolf/ vampire/ werepanther/ cursed/whatever-other-supernatural-excuse-you can-come-up-with. This is outright unapologetic abuse and cruelty. No redeeming features. No-one in their right mind would be attracted to someone who threatens to murder your friends and their child (their child!) in his first meeting with you. Not to mention 2 attempts at physical rape and several of mental rape. And not one apology. At any point in the book. And quite frankly, not even a decent supernatural excuse. He just does it because angels don't care about humans. Right, if you didn't care, you wouldn't need to abuse them.

I somehow managed to finish the book, and halfway through, all of a sudden it becomes a different book. He becomes slightly more palatable, and she conveniently forgets everything he did, and concludes he is not evil.
I beg to differ. Just because someone more evil comes along, doesn't mean Raphael is not evil. He is.

And PNR may have its tropes, but temporary supernaturally 'excused' disrespect for women has become unexcused disrespect for all life to a nauseating extent in Angels' blood, and the characters don't make sense and are not consistent. The writing consists of the heroine trying to fight of magically induced seduction, actual sex and gore.

If I could give less than 1 star, I would. ( )

Elena Deveraux, a Guild hunter, tracks and brings wayward vampires back to their masters, the angels. After one such mission she gets contracted by the most powerful being in the region: Archangel Raphael, only this time she wont be bringing back a lowly vampire, she will be tracking an Archangel on a killing spree.
With both Elena and Raphael pushing each others boundaries and discovering their underlying passion, will they be able to work together to hunt down Uram before he starts his killing spree in earnest or before Elena finds herself as the one being hunted?

My take on the book:

To be honest, I haven't really read that many books with angel romance as the main theme, but this series is on its way to become one of my favourite! I do love myself a good romance :)

I love the fact that, unlike some other books, the heroine doesn't have to do everything. Nope, Elena is pretty much relegated to tracker, and yes, this is a good thing! I mean, there are Archangels who are infinite more powerful than humans/hunters/vampires, it makes a lot of sense that they get to do the heavy lifting :)

The characters were interesting, we got some info here and there about Raphael and some of the vampires, with Ransom and Sara having their say as well. Elena is, as the main character, of course the most fleshed out, though I must say that I wanted to know the full story of what happened in the past and not just pieces of info. Because this really scarred Elena and made her into the woman she is today, nightmares and all. Hoping that will be revealed in the next book.

As the romancing goes, it wasn't over the top (and yes sex is involved if that is important to you). They didn't jump each others bones right from the get go, but rather got used to each other and got over their own prejudices first (well.. some at least).

The book is well written and I don't think I've found any errors. The pacing is great, not too much info at once, a gradual building of the story.

All in all a most excellent read, I thoroughly enjoyed it and especially loved all the character interaction. ( )

Really good series ( )

re-read July 2013 for at least the 7th time. I regret nothing. ( )

This was basically angel/vamp/human porn.... ( )