Guild Hunters
Series:
Book 3:
Archangels Consort:
Elena Deveraux and Archangel Raphael
Summary:
Raphael, Elena, members of Raphael’s Seven and the other
members of the Cadre have just faced off with the powerful yet crazy Lijuan, in
her territory of the Far East. Her
entire territory is ravaged from the fight and it may be centuries before it
can recover fully from what occurred. Raphael and Elena are really hoping for
some down time. This is the first that Elena is returning to New York with
wings and Raphael and crew are still doing some rebuilding from the fight with
Urem, so some down time would be welcome. However, that does not look like it’s
going to come to pass. Just as they arrive home, storms start breaking out all
around the world; young vampires are breaking contracts and attacking humans.
Even the archangels are starting to act erratic. These are all signs that an
old one, a truly Ancient archangel is Waking. Raphael has enough on his hands
without an Ancient waking and ravaging the world.
Review:
This book continues to where the second book left off.
Chronologically it is almost immediately after the fight with Lijuan. Raphael
returns to his territory which Dmitri and his Seven held for him while Elena
was sleeping and recovering. There are high hopes that things would return to
normal and they can get some piece. That does not appear to be in the cards
that this time…
Elena in this book is still struggling with her nightmares,
she just wishes the torment would end, but each night the dreams come but now
she has Raphael to hold onto. Raphael has been great as her rock, she knows she
can always turn to him. However, at their return Elena realizes that nothing is
the same anymore. Her fellow hunters have been great, Sara will always be there
for her, but the rest of the city stares with fascination ay her new wings. N.
Singh, did a fantastic job of portraying Elena and her new found immortality
realistically. You rarely see how the person that is suddenly immortal handles
the transition with Elena you see the struggles she goes through. Your hear
wrenches with Elena when she realizes that eventually she is going to have to
watch her friends and family pass on. For someone that is as close with her
chosen family as Elena is, you know that this hurts her terribly. You also
watch Elena continue to struggle with her father, several of their issues come
to head in this novel and you watch as two very stubborn people try to deal
with each other. Elena has grown quite a bit since the first book. Her
determination and grit is very admirable and I have come to truly enjoy Elena.
In this book we are facing Raphael’s demons. All signs point
to Raphael’s mother as being the Ancient One that is arising; when she went
into rest she was truly mad. Raphael as a young baby immortal tried to stop his
mother and she left him broken in a field.
In this book we see Raphael as venerable as we will probably ever see
him. On one hand we see Raphael’s hope that maybe his mother will wake sane,
but you see him battle with the knowledge that she may just be as insane as she
was when she when into Rest and if that is the case he will have to finish what
he started in the field where she left him bloody and broken. You also see
Raphael struggle with allowing Elena to see him in such a venerable position,
but in the end she ends up breaking through his icy façade. It was good to see
Raphael brought down to an almost human level, well as human as Raphael can
get. For most the series so far, there has been a worry regarding Elena making
Raphael more mortal but in the end of this book you may have a slight surprise
regarding this.
Rating:
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