First, let me just say that this book is HOT. I’d recently found myself getting bored with sex scenes in books, to the point where I would (gasp!) even skip them. Not in this book. Singh builds up the sexual tension between Elena, our heroine, and Gabriel, her dark-and-sexy archangel employer to the point where I thought I might burst into flames before they actually got it on. The buildup is smoldering, and the love scenes themselves are absolutely smoking. Thank you, Ms. Singh, for making me love reading love scenes again.
Angels’ Blood is the first book in the Guild Hunter series, and it sets up an interesting world in which angels fly the skies and make vampires on occasion. I’ll admit to a little blink of surprise when I read that, because it’s so unusual. Angels AND vampires, and the angels are the vampires’ makers? The process is explained somewhat, but I did find myself wishing for a bit more background on this world. I hate infodumps, but so much is left unexplained–I would have liked a pared down history of the world worked in there somewhere that would give a clue as to why the angels live openly in our world.
The world is full of wonderfully creative and expertly described touches, though, that make it very unique and immersive. The differences in the angels’ appearances were particularly lovely. Gabriel, the archangel in charge of New York, has what we might think of as more typical angel wings: white tipped with gold, but other angels have feathers of different colors. My favorite is Illium, with his amazing blue wings. But the angels aren’t just gorgeous winged beings; they’re also very sexual beings, which is a very nice change from the stoic mythological beings I’m used to seeing. I loved the use of angel dust–the fine, glittery powder given off by the angels, not the drug. The idea that Gabriel coats Elena in his angel dust as foreplay brings to mind other, naughtier things (heh), and I love the visual of her skin sparkling with his sexy dust.
One more observation on worldbuilding: I love the multiculturalism of Singh’s world. It’s refreshing to read an urban fantasy with a wide variety of ethnicities represented. Reading this made me realize just how whitewashed a lot of the fiction I read really is.
Elena Deveraux, our vampire hunter heroine, is tough as nails and yet also emotionally vulnerable–an excellent blending of strong and weak that comes together to make a realistic, sympathetic character. She can kick pretty much anyone’s ass and withstand torture, but she’s desperately afraid of having her own control removed. This leads to some rather… well, stupid reactions, not to put too fine a point on it. She knows that sassing an archangel is dangerous for her health, but she just can’t put up with his bossy, alpha male attitude.
Gabriel’s one of those heroes that I feel a bit weird about liking so much. He’s an alpha male in every sense of the word: he’s physically powerful and is self-assured to the point of arrogance. I suppose if I were an immortal archangel, I’d be pretty damned arrogant myself, but he occasionally crosses the line into asshole territory. In real life, I’d probably hate any guy who acts like Gabriel, but in this book, I found him irresistibly sexy. The little hints of humanity–strange word to use for someone who has never been human–make him so much more attractive, too. And honestly, the fact that he is dangerous is sexy to me, at least in a written character.
I’ve already got the second book in the series, Archangel’s Kiss, lined up and ready to read. Angels’ Blood is a sexy, intriguing mystery that definitely left me wanting more.
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