Helpful Score: 2
Much better than I expected after reading The Darkest Seduction. Zacharel was almost perfect. I think he fell in love and became mushy a little too quickly but some of his one liners were great and he's the kind of romance hero I love to read about. Gruff and reserved on the outside, but deeply loving, sweet, and committed to his love on the inside. Annabelle was one of Showalter's better heroines and refreshing after so many immature harpies and goddesses. I actually really like her, which can't be said of her last two heroines.
Despite loving the main characters and most of their exploits with one another, the book ultimately failed for me story wise and as a beginning to a new series. It was a good idea to write a side story about Zacharel since he quickly became one of her more interesting and enigmatic characters from the Lords of the Underworld series. But the army of angels he leads are too reminiscent of the lords of the underworld. They aren't physically hosting demons but they are metaphorically and their personalities might as well be interchangeable with the lords. I just don't want to read any more about them. I don't even want to read about the lords anymore!
It was interesting to read Showalter's version of the Law of Attraction although, as a spiritual person who if pressed to describe my religion would pick Wiccan, I'm a little disturbed that the author believes using the Ouiji board and going to psychics is a way of opening oneself to demonic influence. Really Showalter? But gruesome scenes of torture by angels are okay as long as demons are the recipients? That seems unjustifiably unbalanced.
The plot also suffers from what I call the Showalter unravel. She builds up something so complex that she can't write herself out of it within the constraints of her numerous writing demands without resorting to easy way outs and convoluting the story. Also, for all the legitimate heat shared between Zacharel and Annabelle, the sex scenes were so poor and uncomfortable and generic that they made me cringe. I resorted to skimming over them because they were so laughably bad.
It's too bad that the end result of this book felt sloppy. I liked the premise and I believe that it could have been a really good book. I think the main culprit against a well-written, well-thought out book is that Showalter is pushing out new books at an alarming rate at the expense of quality.
Despite loving the main characters and most of their exploits with one another, the book ultimately failed for me story wise and as a beginning to a new series. It was a good idea to write a side story about Zacharel since he quickly became one of her more interesting and enigmatic characters from the Lords of the Underworld series. But the army of angels he leads are too reminiscent of the lords of the underworld. They aren't physically hosting demons but they are metaphorically and their personalities might as well be interchangeable with the lords. I just don't want to read any more about them. I don't even want to read about the lords anymore!
It was interesting to read Showalter's version of the Law of Attraction although, as a spiritual person who if pressed to describe my religion would pick Wiccan, I'm a little disturbed that the author believes using the Ouiji board and going to psychics is a way of opening oneself to demonic influence. Really Showalter? But gruesome scenes of torture by angels are okay as long as demons are the recipients? That seems unjustifiably unbalanced.
The plot also suffers from what I call the Showalter unravel. She builds up something so complex that she can't write herself out of it within the constraints of her numerous writing demands without resorting to easy way outs and convoluting the story. Also, for all the legitimate heat shared between Zacharel and Annabelle, the sex scenes were so poor and uncomfortable and generic that they made me cringe. I resorted to skimming over them because they were so laughably bad.
It's too bad that the end result of this book felt sloppy. I liked the premise and I believe that it could have been a really good book. I think the main culprit against a well-written, well-thought out book is that Showalter is pushing out new books at an alarming rate at the expense of quality.
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