A review by eesh25
Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh

3.0

This book starts a year after the fight with Uram. Elena has been in a Coma the entire time and has just woken up as a newbie Angel. She's still weak and needs practice being an angel but there's someone trying to kill her things are complicated.

The official summary also includes the fact that she and Raphael are dealing with Lijuan's ball invitation, but that's such a small part of the book that if you go in expected it, you's be disappointed. Like I was.

One of the things I liked about the first book was that we knew what we were gonna get and we got it. There was a romance and Uram was the bad guy, and the book focused on those two aspects. In this book, I expected Lijuan as the villain and for the story to kick off with a few chapter of training, and then the ball. But really, the ball didn't happen until we 90% into the book. Even Lijuan was only in the final quarter.

The rest of the book was about two other things.

1. The relationship between Raphael and Elena. I liked this part. Not many authors take the time to properly develop the romantic relationship between the protagonists in a series like this. I liked how the author gave importance to a healthy relationship between Raphael and Elena. It was done well.
2. The person trying to kill Elena. This was a major plot point and I liked it. But it wasn't the plot point we were told of and it has a very anticlimactic ending.

In fact, both the major plot points had anticlimactic ending. The Lijuan aspect has a bad build up as well. I wish the author hasn't tried to jam to different stories into one book. She could have done both justice by writing separate book and focusing on each one at a time.

But despite all that, this book was interesting. I was invested in the story and I liked the characters. My biggest gripe with the book (not including the world building, which hasn't progressed) was the writing.

It was so repetitive!

I swear to God, half the book was just Elena describing different faces, postures and wings. And scents, but they were relevant. Most number of descriptions went to Raphael. I was like, we get it! He's pretty, hot and dangerous, and you wanna screw his brains out. Can we move on now?!

Obviously, we didn't move on. The descriptions were endless and torturous. Elena also kept mentions the same events over and over again (like the vamp Raphael once tortured and left broken near some fountain) and I am sick and tired of hearing the words "hunter-born". Every time she said it, or thought it, I wanted to hit her.

The nightmares got old and I didn't love the way the revelations about their childhoods were handled. I'm happy that we got revelations, though.

Also, loads of loose ends like in the last book but the book did have its resolutions and I'm happy about that.

Overall, this book wasn't as good as the first for me but I liked it. I liked how the romantic relationship was developed and it was fun at times, We got to meet new characters, which was good. I will be continuing with the series; I just hope I don't have to real with the over-descriptions again.