Friday, 29 November 2013

Review: ARCHANGEL'S BLADE

Archangel's Blade by Nalini Singh
Book 4 of the Guild Hunter series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback

About Archangel's Blade:
The severed head marked by a distinctive tattoo on its cheek should have been a Guild case, but dark instincts honed over hundreds of years of life compel the vampire Dmitri to take control. There is something twisted about this death, something that whispers of centuries long past...but Dmitri's need to discover the truth is nothing to the vicious strength of his response to the hunter assigned to decipher the tattoo.

Savaged in a brutal attack that almost killed her, Honor is nowhere near ready to come face to face with the seductive vampire who is an archangel's right hand, and who wears his cruelty as boldly as his lethal sensuality...the same vampire who has been her secret obsession since the day she was old enough to understand the inexplicable, violent emotions he aroused in her.

As desire turns into a dangerous compulsion that might destroy them both, it becomes clear the past will not stay buried. Something is hunting...and it will not stop until it brings a blood-soaked nightmare to life once more...
Source: Info in the About Archangel's Blade was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8074967-archangel-s-blade on 20/03/2013.

Review:
I am a touchy-feely kind of reader, that is why I never stopped buying print books despite the proliferation and advantages of ebooks. I appreciate the convenience that ebooks offer, but I would always go back to print books whenever I can. So, to a reader like me, cover arts plays a significant role in my reading habit. And I have to comment on the UK cover of this book. The wing tattoo on the back design was appropriate for the first three books in this series because those books' focus were Raphael and Elena, however it missed by a wide mile with this book. Some of the likely excuses which would probably get spouted are that, art departments wanted to make the series look the same, etc., etc. However, I think they need to adapt and make the book a bit more consistent instead of any other excuse that they could think up. Or maybe they ought to take lessons from the US art department. Speaking of which, the model in the US cover is buffed and all but, for some reason I imagined Dmitri as a stocky man. Maybe more like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dwayne The Rock Johnson... Wider in the shoulders from farming or something...

I wasn't really looking forward to reading this book because I already gotten used to reading all about Raphael and Elena in this series with Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3. And now all of a sudden they are secondary characters and the story focuses on a new couple, one of which is a completely new character. I was kind of not looking forward to that. But I was in between good books (IBGB) kind of funk, so this book got read. I shouldn't have worried too much because Nalini Singh brought into this book the same masterful story telling quality that I have come to love with this author! Nalini Singh made me like Dmitri and Honor despite my initial resistance. You gotta give an author a lot of kudos for that 'coz that takes talent! However I felt like the ending was a bit too dramatic and drawn-out. It wasn't a let down, don't get me wrong, I just felt that with this author she could have done a better job of it. Despite that, I enjoyed this book given that this is a Nalini Singh work and would definitely be reading the next book in this series!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 5
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = UK: 2 / US: 4.5
Pace =
Plot = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Guild Hunter series:

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