TBR Challenge: ‘ANGELS’ BLOOD’, by Nalini Singh

The topic of this month is Favorite Trope

Published: 2009

Genre: paranormal / Urban fantasy

My Rating: 4 stars

Part of a Series: Guild Hunter #1

I have several favourite topics: amnesia, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, second chance at love.

Therefore, it was easy to find something in my humongous TBR pile that could fit into the theme. There it was, ‘Angels’ Blood’ by Nalini Singh, a book I bought because it was in the 2018 Top 100 of All About Romance.

Paranormal is not my genre. Nevertheless, suddenly I found out that I could not stop reading. I was enjoying the world building, the tension between Raphael and Elena, and two characters bigger than life that clashed one and again and you do not know if they will end up killing each other or fucking each other senseless.

The world building is quite interesting. It is set in NY, but in a world full of certain groups of magical creatures: some of them are immortals —angels, archangels and vampires—and the rest, just human.

The archangels are amazing, so powerful and handsome, they rule over nations. In addition, as they have lived for many centuries, they are wise but full of ennui; they just do not care about humans. Everyone fears them and admires them.

The vampires are ‘Made’, humans converted into vampires by the archangels. They will live forever but there is a prize —they have to be slaves to their angelical masters.

Sometimes, vampires run away from their masters: Here enters de Guild Hunters, humans than know how to search for these vampires gone wild.

The best hunter is Elena, a young woman that can detect vampires by smell.

One day the most powerful archangel in North America, Raphael, calls her. He is a handsome person, powerful, and —as he has lived so many centuries—, nothing surprises him or catches his attention.

That amazing body of Raphael, his muscles, his great wings, duly impresses Elena. Even those eyes, bluest than anything she has ever seen. She is attracted to him in spite of herself. Elena knows that, for archangels, humans are nothing more than toys, no more important than ants for people; they can torture and kill them without blinking or dedicating a second thought.

However, Raphael needs the skills of this vampire hunter. She will have to track not a vampire but an archangel gone rogue, evil, bloodthirsty.

She will undertake the mission, even knowing that the archangels would want to kill her at the end.

This novel follows the topic ‘enemies to lovers’, because Raphael and Elena, although attracted to each other, really clash from the beginning.

He despises humans. He accepts that Elena has to die in the end, because she knows too much. Moreover, she makes him weak.

Elena resists his efforts to control her. A real kick-ass, she will defend herself, even shooting if it is required to get him out of her mind. Raphael is not the only enemy she makes. In fact, so many people want to torture her, and maim her and kill her, and suck her blood that up to a certain point, she just says — “Join the queue”.

Despite being a paranormal novel, I enjoyed this book. I think it can be because the characters are very attractive. I am not surprised that the character of Elena Deveraux won both the annual poll in AAR for the Most Kickass Heroine and the RT Award for the best urban fantasy protagonist.

Her attitude is, more or less —

Are you going to kill me? OK, let’s go and do the job, don’t lose our time with stupid questions about how much you want to kill me. I could be a dead woman, but not yet.

Raphael is your prototypical cold and powerful hero, but in a sense is quite intriguing, he leaves the door open to things that perhaps can make him a little bit human.

There is great sexual tension all through the book although little sex on the page. Everybody acts like horny teens wanting to fuck everybody else. They talk about sex a lot, sometimes with crude words.

I have to recognize that what I was asking myself all time was —how do angels have sex? I mean with those big wings, where do you put them? Which position is the more appropriate...? Look at those wings! They are going to be in the way all the time.

Therefore, if you have ever asked yourself about the sex of the angels, perhaps this book can give you the answer.

(I’m not sure I was quite satisfied).

(I still have doubts).

As paranormal is not my genre, I cannot say that this book was perfect for me. However, it was so enjoyable that I wholeheartedly recommend it.

La pedrea (2018)

Ayer mencioné las novelas en inglés de las que vi mejores críticas en el extranjero en 2018. 

Hoy me gustaría simplemente mencionar otros libros publicados en 2018 no tan destacados, pero que también fueron bien acogidos allá afuera. Destacaría, sobre todo, las espectaculares novelas contemporáneas que se han publicado este año.

Esta es la «pedrea» de 2018, un montón de novelas entre las que se pueden encontrar lecturas interesantes.

Contemporánea

Christina Lauren: Josh + Hazel’s guide to not dating

Talia Hibbert: A Girl Like Her (crítica, aquí) 

Jasmine Guillory: The Proposal

Jenny Holiday: One and Only

Roni Loren: The One You Can't Forget

Kristen Callihan: Fall

Julie Anne Long: First Time at Firelight Falls

Jackie Lau: Mr. Hotshot CEO

Talia Hibbert: Wanna Bet? (crítica, aquí) 

Emma Chase: Getting schooled

Rebekah Weatherspoon: Rafe

Jasmine Guillory: The Wedding Date

Colleen Hoover: All Your Perfects

Jenny Holiday: It Takes Two

Histórica

Beverly Jenkins: Tempest

Kelly Bowen: A duke in the night (crítica, aquí) 

Sarah MacLean: Wicked and the Wallflower

Kerrigan Byrne: The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo

Scarlett Peckham: The duke I tempted

KJ Charles: The Henchmen of Zenda

Lorraine Heath: Beyond scandal and desire (crítica, aquí) 

Fantasía (urban y de la otra)

Ilona Andrews: Magic triumphs

Ilona Andrews: Diamond Fire

Ilona Andrews: Iron and Magic

Naomi Novik: Spinning Silver

Lee Welch: Salt Magic, Skin Magic

Suspense

Charlie Adhara: The Wolf at the Door

L. J. Hayward: Where Death Meets the Devil

J. R. Ward: Consumed

Como suelo decir, estas listas las elaboro sobre todo para mí. Pero las comparto con la confianza de que quizá ayuden a quienes quieran leer romántica de su género favorito y las traducciones se les queden pequeñas.

Como todos los años, no hago lista de mis favoritos de este año: basta picar en «Valoración 5» para ver los libros que más me gustaron, y además ya comenté un poco cómo me fue este año lector en mi entrada del 31 de diciembre.

Ojalá 2019 nos depare lecturas sorprendentes y atractivas que nos enamoren.

TBR Challenge: NIGHT SHIFT

The topic of this month is Paranormal or Romantic Suspense

Published: Nov-2014

Genre: Paranormal / Urban fantasy / Epic fantasy

My Rating: 1-4-2-4 stars

In October we have to choose either a paranormal novel or a romantic suspense. I usually prefer suspense, as paranormal is not my cup of thing. But this year I tried something paranormal.

It was in my TBR pile because I wanted to read the Milla Vane's (Meljean Brook) story, but I have also read very good reviews of the whole anthology so I said let’s give a try to new authors.

It is announced as:

Four masters of urban fantasy and paranormal romance plunge readers into the dangerous, captivating world unearthed beyond the dark...

It starts with Nalini Singh’s Secrets at Midnight (1 star). I have read the first one of the Psy-Changeling series, and I liked the romantic part, not the paranormal, which sounded a little sexist for my tastes. That’s why I have tried (and enjoyed) her contemporary stories but never gave her paranormals another try. In this short story there’s a shapeshifter called Bastien Smith who finds the scent of his mate and then discovers her. She is Kirby, apparently a human, but she is also a shapeshifter that doesn’t know her true nature, or her real past, who her parents were.

When I imagined this man walking the streets and sniffing around the corners to find her mate, I just found it silly. The characters sounded very juvenile to my tastes, and I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. This whole thing about humans turning into animals that purr it’s utterly ridiculous, I told myself–

Why are you reading something so obviously not fit for you, something you don’t either enjoy or understand?

This could be the best paranormal ever, you are just blind to its charms. 

You. Don’t. Like. Paranormals.

That’s me, talking to myself. I found the characters were like teenagers, the plot was paper-thin, the romantic part not very hot or believable because, where’s fun part if you have ‘a mate’ chosen for you by –I don’t know– destiny? Apart from that, it has the same problems that I found in Slave to Sensation. Silly things about animal spirit, men marking their mates, everybody touching everybody else (how uncomfortable! Not to talk about consent before touching, no, if you don’t like it say no and I will stop. Does nobody understand that, in certain uncomfortable situations, is quite difficult to say no?) And the sexism, of course, men behave one way, women in a different way… But at least I gave 4 stars to Slave… Maybe it was because the Psy part sounded more science-fiction than paranormal.

It’s not a bad story, if you like that kind of tropes. But that’s not my case so I ended up skimming through the pages, reading only the dialogues, rolling y eyes and ending it as soon as possible.

Then we have the story written by the wife-husband team Ilona Andrews, Magic Steals (4 stars). I started reading it and found out… No, no, please, shapeshifters, were-something again? No, please. But then they did start talking (as responsible adults! Level-headed adults!! Conscious-culture adults!!!), things happened, and I was glued to the page anxious to see what else was going to happen next.

This is the story of Jim, a jaguar shifter, that has been dating Dali Harimau, a shapeshifting tigress of Indonesian ascent and that can make magic. She has to find out a lady that has been missing and Jim helps her in her investigation.

I loved both characters, the plot was so interesting, as there was a mystery, something to find out, a whodunit and the reason why. And the romantic part works greatly, and rather believable. Both characters have been dating for a while, so it is logical that they are ready for the next step in their relationship.

I just loved the humour, as some moments were very funny. Deliciously funny. And the suspense, of course, it was quite tricky and well solved.

So I surprised myself thinking that maybe I was wrong. Maybe it is not shapeshifting in itself what I find silly. If it is well written and entertaining, I don’t give a damn about the paranormal part. It keeps on being something I dislike, and that’s why this is not a perfect 5-star story for me. Paranormal is not something that I enjoy but I can ignore it, tolerate it, as far as the rest works well and in this case, well, I just couldn’t stop reading. I cannot wait. I’m going to read something else written by Ilona Andrews soon. I still haven’t read any book with that name on the front page.

The third one is Lucky Charms, by Lisa Shearin (2 stars). It’s about Makenna Frazier, a seer that has started to work at Supernatural Protection and Investigations. It’s told in a first person narrative. And the voice of this person is quite funny. I liked her. And the boy sounded like someone interesting, but in the end the plot was very boring. They are supposed to look for several leprechauns that want to have fun. I didn’t see any romantic part in this story. It wasn’t really a novella. It was like reading the first chapters of a book. And that’s just what this is, an introduction to the SPI Files series.

And last but not least, Milla Vane and The Beast of Blackmoor (4 stars). This is an epic fantasy about a barbarian princess, called Mala who has been sent by her goddess in a quest to tame the Beast of Blackmoor. She doesn’t know that Kavik is a warrior that protects people who want to leave Blackmoor. Both of them detest the ruler of Blackmoor, but they seems unable to defeat him. This bad person wants Mala to give Kavik tamed to him, with collar and leashed, but Mala does not accept that that is what her goddess wants from her.

There’s a lot of fighting, beasts, demons, and quite a little bit of sex between these two. It looks like they cannot have intercourse until full moon, but it doesn’t matter because you can use your mouth and your fingers until that magical moment arrives.

I really enjoyed this story and made me want to read more stories like this one. But it looks like Meljean Brook didn’t explore this ‘Milla Vane’ world in new novels. And she hasn’t ended the Iron Seas series yet. So –I will keep on waiting.

But I could be wrong, so if there's anything new by Brooks/Vane, please, tell me.

  

So, I don’t like paranormals, it’s not something I enjoy. But reading this book I have found out that if the story is attractive, and the author knows how to create an interesting plot, with engaging characters, and a lot of style, then I can enjoy it, and I don’t care about the magical things that appear. I was glad to discover that Ilona Andrews is as good as everybody says, because I want to read some of their books, at least those that are included in AAR Top 100 in 2018.