You know how I get, I have a vision of a kind of book in my mind, and I just don't feel right until I read it. Luckily, it was pretty easy for me to find an angel book in my library, and this one was so interesting I was easily able to dive right into it. A different take on the usual kind of archangel books I've read, this one contained a new species of aliens I've never read before, ones that look exactly like humans and are able to hide their huge angel wings to blend in. I really enjoyed reading it.

Check out my full review here!

https://radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com/2021/01/25/starfire-angels-dark-ang... ( )

I'm going to preface this review with a trigger warning for drugging and rape. It's something that needs to be said before someone reads this book and my review and have it bring up horrible memories.

Honestly I wanted to like this book more, but where the author took this book is just... wrong. If you think this book is about Raea, you'd be wrong and that is where most of the fault lies.

Nilles builds Raea up to be a strong character and about 70% into the book.. yeah. So much for that.

We find out that she is drugged and then raped by Pallin. While rape isn't a forbidden subject, the way it's handled here is merely to get ELIS bothered. Depowering not only Raea, but making her an object to further Elis's motivations. As this is the catalyst for him to start the ending of the book. It's Elis that get's mad and doesn't listen to Raea, Elis that goes to the motel and Elis that begins the fight with Pallin. Actually this book is about Elis it seems.

But "OH" you say "She finishes it!" That doesn't make up for the fact that she was rendered a 'damsel in distress', 'Elis's "property" that was soiled that he had to fight the honor of', and even is the 'hostage' at the very end. Because really, Elis going after Pallin like that just makes Raea nothing but property, like he owns her. "I have to hurt Pallin because he did that to MY lover/girlfriend/mate."

Another thing is that these angel people are supposed to be SOOOO technologically advanced, yet they fall into the standard gender dichotomies. Nilles writes "he needed the touch of a female," (dehumanizing language) "just as any man did." That wasn't written from the character's perspective either. Also, some of the "any man" out there that I know of prefer the touch of a another man. So these scifi angel people haven't seemed to advance that far yet either.

Overall the book wasn't written badly, however where the book decided to take itself was into territory that it would have been better off just not going there. It could have easily ended that same way without the things happening at the end that seemed to steer the car off the road into "Don't-Go-Thereville" ( )

Thanks to Goodreads for sending this First Reads book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.

Unfortunately, I'm finding difficulty in describing anything I liked in this book. It seemed to have potential, but this book was so predictable in an annoying way. The identities of who the main character dates, who she ends up with, etc were pretty clear from the first few pages. Character development for the main characters and the side characters was seriously lacking. The writing at times was plain confusing, hard to follow, and repetitive while explanations about the plot were often unclear. And the main character - the worst part of the book. She was stupid, shallow, and supposedly 18 years old though she acted much more like she was under 15. She was obsessed with a guy because he was cute, bored with her best friend because of his interests, rude to everyone around her, and completely unlikable.

This is just not a book I enjoyed nor is it one I'd recommend. ( )

This is one of my many acquisitions that I got for free from iBook’s. The description from Goodreads promised me an interesting context with a lot of potential. I found this one of the better e-books I've found for free on iBook’s. Sometimes it was all a bit predictable but beggars cannot be choosers, right?

All in all I found it an entertaining story; the storyline was unique with some nice twists even though it was sometimes a bit easy to foretell the ending.

Our main character Raea is a bit of a whine, if you don't like this in a book I recommend you don't start this one. Other than that I really liked her as a person, maybe she could do something about her self-confidence but I could tell that to myself as well.

The love story is not the main part of the book, this definitely is Raea trying to fit in and find herself into this new world she knows nothing about. Can't say that I'm not curious about where this love story is gonna go, but we will see that hopefully in volume two.

It was a pity that we did not read anything about the angel world in this book. I was so curious after they've talked about it throughout the book. But the writer definitely gave us a reason to read the second volume in this series.

This is beyond any doubt one of the easiest reads I've had in weeks. It took me one evening to finish it, and this is all due to the easy writing style of Melanie Nilles; props on that. It's definitely worth a read and as I already said, I'm curious what's going to happen in the next book!

Love,
Anne

http://pursuit-of-books.blogspot.com ( )

I have all your books and I love each of them. They all keep me sitting on the edge of my seat very well thought out story has a wonderful plot absolutely fantastic. Five Stars All your books.. Thanks so much and I will always get your books and anyones you tell me to read.. TerriAnn Brochu ( )