Charouth is trying to redeem herself after a 2,000 year
old love affair got her demoted from Heaven’s elite. She is now poised to
reclaim her position as she searches for Artefacts that could be the keys to
Satan’s prison
Only Hell has their own agents searching for these relics – including Azazel, her old, long missing lover.
This book has a lot of intriguing elements. We have a lot
of angelic politics with the Archangels clearly following their own agendas and
Charouth being caught in the political machinations of her superiors. We have a
world that has a number of mythologies and something clearly epic beginning with
the Norse and the Titans at war – a conflict that catches Charouth in the cross
fire.
We have a fanatical cult who both revere angels – then judge
Charouth for not meeting their angelic ideal which is another fascinating
element that begs for development
And we have a world where the supernatural rubs elbows –
up to and including the Angels and the Fallen interacting. They’re not exactly
friendly, but the overt antagonism that you’d expect is definitely lacking.
There’s a lot here that could be developed and I was really looking forward to
discovering it all as Charouth and Azazel competed to find an important
artefact
This potential is just lost, however. Because 80% of
everything Charouth and Azazel think about is each other. Over and over and
over and over again we’re “treated” to lined, paragraphs, entire pages of how
hot/sexy/yummy the other was, how good they were together, how much they missed
each other, how important the relationship was to them, how it was Charouth’s
first relationship (because of course he had to be more experienced than her)
and generally the many many ways and times they want to have lots of hot sex.
This is then mixed with lots and lots of Azazel being
super jealous because in the TWO
THOUSAND YEARS they’ve been apart Charouth has allowed another man to touch
her. The very idea, how could she not just wait for him forever and ever and
ever! No, really, he expected her to wait. He’s amazingly jealous with lots of
planned vengeance against another angel for sleeping with Charouth and even
having an epic temper tantrum because she is wearing a leather bracelet he
assumes her lover bought it for her and how very dare he!
On top of this Azazel devotes a ridiculous amount of time to planning how to avenge Charouth when anyone wrongs her. Or how to protect her. Charouth is an angel. Charouth is one of the elite – that means she’s second only to the Archangels in terms of angelic important. She does not need Azazel to protect her avenge her or otherwise be the big strong man for her. Stop this.
This romantic obsession consumes the book. It is utterly
overwhelming to an extent that it eclipses everything else. This is especially annoying
when you consider the plot – they’re trying to find an artefact that could
release Satan. This is, obviously, a major concern for Charouth. Apparently. So
we’re told. Because she never acts like this is something that important to her
– and nor does Azazel. So much so that I don’t even know why Azazel is on board
with this since he doesn’t seem to be remotely a fan of Satan so… what is he
doing and why? I don’t know because he just eternally focuses on Charouth,
mopes about Charouth, stomps and rages about Charouth, lusts after Charouth and
storms around in a big emo funk because Charouth has rejected him and it’s
soooo unfair precious!
The romance is the main complete barrier to the plot –
but Charouth also makes a lot of bewildering mistakes. She finds an important
artefact – and then decides to go drinking in a demon bar (so she can randomly
do some psychic karaoke… no, really). She has this precious artefact she needs
to get back to heaven asap – and she takes time out to go drinking. WHYYYY?
And there’s this human who keeps summoning her and dishing out orders. He becomes more and more dictatorial each scene and she just ignores it. This guy couldn’t possibly be more ominous if he had a large moustache that he kept twirling – but she completely ignores him, treats him as a random distraction and then goes back to whatever she was doing before (having sex with Azazel).
Frankly, I was beyond sick of it. By the time Azazel is
taking part in pit fights because he is so mopey and upset about Charouth, I
was beyond done with both of them. There’s a world here, there’s an epic
conflict, there’s an apocalypse – please please please drop your childish
hormonal stropping and get on with it!
Now look back at the behaviour I’ve described here and
remember these are millennia year old angels. These are super ancient, mighty
beings of infinite experience. Apparently they’re not rather immature
teenagers.
Diversitywise, we have a lesbian couple who own a
bookshop. One of them is a vampire and is Asian. They’re a teeny tiny part as
both Charouth and Azazel use the shop to do research. What really annoys me
about this portrayal is that a gang of the angry cult humans burst in and
threaten the shop assistant with guns – and her vampire lover slaughters them.
Charouth then mopes terribly about these “innocent” people being slaughtered in
such an evil fashion. There is no acknowledgement of what the cultists were
doing.
There’s another gay character who is a minor sidekick of
the minor villain – he basically follows orders and provides services to his
boss, even though he has some level of moral qualms he squashes for the sake of
obedience.
As to POC, there’s that Asian vampire, Kissera – and I know she’s Asian because she drops into Cantonese to insult them. But I don’t know the race of anyone from their description – not even the protagonists. I spent most of this book trying to figure out if Charouth was a WOC or not and, to be honest, I’m still not sure. The descriptions are too ambiguous and it’s like that with every character; which leaves me saying POC are not well included because even if they are there, they are not portrayed.
There’s the bones of a good book, a good story and a good
plot under hear. But those bones have been more deeply buried than your average
dinosaur skeleton and instead we have terrible decision making, one of the most
angst ridden, trope riddled romances I’ve had the displeasure to read and some
main characters I’d cheerfully beat to death with my own tablet rather than have
to read another world of their internal monologues. Nice concept, but the
execution is lacking.
