Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Berkley Sensation
Pages: 339
Release Date: March 3, 2009
USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh introduces a world of beauty and bloodlust, where angels hold sway over vampires…
Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux knows she’s the best—but she doesn’t know if she’s good enough for this job. Hired by the dangerously beautiful Archangel Raphael, a being so lethal that no mortal wants his attention, only one thing is clear—failure is not an option…even if the task is impossible.
Because this time, it’s not a wayward vamp she has to track. It’s an archangel gone bad.
The job will put Elena in the midst of a killing spree like no other…and pull her to the razor’s edge of passion. Even if the hunt doesn’t destroy her, succumbing to Raphael’s seductive touch just may. For when archangels play, mortals break…
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Angel’s Blood is the first novel in the Guild Hunter series, which follows Elena, a vampire hunter, as she’s hired by the archangel Raphael for her special abilities.
Angels, specifically Archangels are one of my favourite fantastical beings in genre fiction. So, I picked up Angel’s Blood almost immediately after I discovered its existence. I liked Angel’s Blood, but there were a few aspects that made me rate it three stars.
All of the fantastical beings in the novel, vampires and angels, are hyper sexualized. Almost every conversation that took place, almost always led to sex. The vampires’ very beings are sex incarnate with an ability that I think is something akin to manipulating pheromones.
This leads into one of my biggest criticisms of the novel: the lack of build up and sexual tension between Elena and Raphael. Despite all the hyper sexualization, there was hardly any build up of sexual tension between the two. I was really hoping for some angst and tension as Elena and Raphael worked together, but the over sexualization of the other characters left no room for any slow build up of tension.
I quite liked Elena since she’s independent, competent, and headstrong. One of my favourite qualities of hers is her inability to cower to Raphael even when it’s dangerous to her wellbeing.
Overall, Angel’s Blood is a promising start to a series full of world building and lore with a romance that is, I suspect, only going to continue heating up.
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Have you read Angel’s Blood? What did you think?
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