Archangel's Blade (A Guild Hunter Novel)

"Honor?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to do things to you now that a good girl definitely shouldn't let a man do to her."
**********

When I first heard that Dmitri would be getting his own book, all I thought initially was - ok. Of all the supporting characters in the Archangel world, I hadn't thought of him having his own story, at least not at this point in the series, but oh how wrong I was. From the start, we're drawn back into this world and into Dmitri's life. He's surrounded by darkness, he's ruthless, to the point, and he shows no softness. We learn why through flashbacks and pieces of memories that Dmitri has kept buried for years. His past is heart breaking and filled with cruelness and he's basically shut himself off to love and kindness keeping only one true friend, in Raphael, close to him.

Honor has survived a horrific ordeal. She's a Hunter and while all her past training helped her to survive, it was her will alone that made it possible for her to stay alive through everything that was done her. When she's brought in to help Dmitri on a case, she really begins to start living again, something she hasn't been able to do for the many months following her rescue. Honor and Dmitri both awaken feelings in the each other that neither can explain, and even when they try to fight everything emotional that's happening between them, the pull is too strong and they both begin a long journey of healing.

There were two separate cases our hero and heroine were working on. The first, and most important to Dmitri, was tracking down every vampire involved in Honor's capture and making them pay. While he and Honor were following leads, they were also trying to track down a killer, one that ends up hitting much closer to home for Dmitri then he ever thought possible.

Honor is a heroine that you will love instantly, care about and root for hard. I fell in love with her from the start, and while her capture takes place before this story happens, we get bits and pieces of what happened through her nightmares and flashbacks. Calling it horrific earlier is an understatement and I'm beyond glad that Nalini didn't include the actual capture in the book. We get enough detail about it to know exactly what happened and we're even left knowing that it was much, much worse than the parts we learn about. We know pretty early on that this story will follow Honor and her path to healing and moving past this event with the help of Dmitri, but I wasn't prepared to watch Dmitri need to do the exact same thing. He long ago buried the pain of a tragic event and Honor unlocks that part of him, the loving Dmitri that's been gone for centuries. Following these two strong people from a very hesitant meeting, (Honor still having a strong negative reaction to being around vampires, it took some time for her to warm up to Dmitri) to seeing them come to need each other and understanding why that was at the very end, it's a perfect kind of love story.

**********
"Put down the belt, Honor." A sexy smile. "Unless you plan to use it."

Stomach clenching, she dropped the belt and stepped back between his spread legs. "I had a feeling you'd be into belts and ropes."

When she reached forward and pushed up his tee, he remained in his sprawled position, a pasha waiting to be served. His skin was the same dark tan shade on his abdomen as it was on his face. "Is your skin this tone all over?"

"Only one way you're going to discover the answer to that."
**********

One pleasant surprise was all the supporting characters we get to catch up with. Raphael and Elena have a little page time, Illium is in and out through most of the story, and we get even more hints about his fascination with mortals and another painful past for our Bluebell. I was most taken with Holly, a young woman we first met when she was captured by Uram and rescued with Dmitri taking responsibility for her. She's terrified of being what Uram was, and with the help of Honor and even Venom, she's starting to move forward. Hers will be a story that continues to evolve throughout the series and I have such a soft spot for her and hope we get her story someday.

Dmitri is not an easy man, and even when Honor becomes a more important part of his life, his outward personality does not change. We still have a vampire who will make the hard decisions, do the jobs that need to be done, but seeing him with Honor as they become closer, they save each other. It's a wonderful story that I'll be rereading, probably many times, and it's one that as I finished the last page, I couldn't help but hope that Dmitri and Honor will have another book sometime in the future.

Blog Rating: 5/5 stars

Let me start by saying that Archangel's Blade may be Nalini Singh's best work to date and quite possibly her best hero she's created with the vampire Dmitri. Yes, ladies and gentleman, while I read Archangel's Blade I forgot about my favorite Singh character, Kaleb, from Nalini's Psy/Changeling series. Now that's something astonishing because out of all Nalini's male characters, Kaleb is the end all and be all for me (Lucas Hunter from Slave to Sensation comes in a close second). Dmitri is unlike any hero I've read this year. He's been an important character in the Guild Hunter series since the beginning as the archangel, Raphael's second in command. Dmitri is a dark, almost villainous creature who uses sex and violence to get what he wants. Some may say he doesn't have a soul from what we've seen of him so far. When I heard Nalini was going to give Dmitri his own book, I really thought it wouldn't work. How could she make Dmitri stand on equal footing all her other wonderful heroes? Dmitri is one slick, and at times, slimy mo fo. Well, Dmitri is a cut above all her heroes and more so. Dmitri will slip deep into your heart and not leave. What you think you know about him is so very wrong, and when you figure out who he really is and why he acts the way he does, you may end up in tears because it's so heartbreaking.

Archangel's Blade is not an easy book to read. Nalini throws everything and the kitchen sink in here in regards to Dmitri and the heroine, Honor. These two have gone through hell and back and have barely survived. Their pasts are full of torture, violence, death and disturbing acts placed on their person and their psyche. Only when they both come together and find love and understanding with one another is where they're able to fully heal. This is a powerful story that shows how love can heal all wounds.

Honor is a member of the Guild Hunter just like Elena, the vampire hunter turned angel who is mated to Raphael, the powerful archangel of Manhattan. Honor is recovering from a horrific vampire attack, where she was held captive for months and was drained of her blood, raped and tortured for no reason. She lives in fear and can barely function, going as far as blaming herself for her attack because she was forced to feel pleasure from some of the tortures she went through. Her boss, as way to push Honor to stop hiding, orders her to investigate a possible serial killer targeting vampires. Honor will have to work alongside Dmitri, who frightens her to her very core not only because he's a vampire, but one who's seductive and close to amoral as you can get.

Dmitri is not impressed with Honor at first because he can sense her fear and loathing. He really doesn't have a high opinion of woman because they fawn all over him and allow him to use their bodies for sex and other degrading acts, or so we're led to believe. His heart belonged to only one woman back when he was mortal and he will never love another with such devotion again. But as he gets to know Honor, the walls around his heart break down. He wants to avenge Honor for what she went through while he comes to terms with his own guilt over the senseless murders of people he loved before he was changed into a vampire. Honor begins to see the true Dmitri and how he's scarred like she is. Honor wants to take what Dmitri is offering. She begins to heal also and comes to the conclusion that Dmitri is her salvation, and so much more.

Archangel's Blade is a book where revenge and forgiveness go hand in hand. This is also a very dark and angst ridden read. What Dmitri and Honor have gone through will numb your heart because it's so disturbing. I raged alongside both of them when they tell one another about their suffering. Dmitri makes no excuses for what he does. But the one thing that makes him redeemable is his undying devotion not only to Raphael, but the memory of a woman who was once his entire life. To explain why this is so important would be a big spoiler and is better left unsaid. I will tell you this, when Dmitri loves, it's unlike anything you will have read before. Watching him and Honor first as adversaries who eventually become each other's yin to their yang is a thing of beauty. Their love and passion is an accumulation of two souls who have been searching for one another for far too long.

There's a big twist regarding Honor that may seem ridiculous and too convenient, but it works when all is said and done. When it's revealed, you may break down in happy tears because it's the ultimate happily ever after.

Awe. I am simply in awe of this book, with Nalini's imagination, characterizations and over storyline and plot. Kudos, big big Kudos to Nalini for Archangel's Blade. I announce my favorite phrase with this one- I want to have babies with this book it's so damn good.

I bow down to Nalini for writing Archangel's Blade. I had tears in my eyes, which doesn't happen very often. Archangel's Blade will stick with me for years to come.

Katiebabs

While I appreciate Dmitri getting a backstory, the writing in this volume is bad enough to inspire a drinking game. Every time "liquid" is used to describe a non-liquid, take a shot: "liquid heat," "liquid silk," "liquid eroticism..." you get the drift. Every time a character's eye color is mentioned, take a shot. Every time an angel or vampire is noted as being inhuman or unyielding, take a shot. Wait, maybe not -- you'd get alcohol poisoning every chapter.

I couldn't help but be reminded of that age-old writing class maxim: show, don't tell. Singh does a lot of telling -- or is using one of those "romance writer random word choice" websites/apps. This book has way more sex scenes than the previous ones, which is good if you like long passages about "the seduction of his skin" or "the eroticism of his touch" or "the sensuality of his kiss." Unfortunately, words like seduction, eroticism, and sensuality... just aren't sexy.

Will I keep going with the series? Yeah, I'm sufficiently interested in the world she's created, but I'm reading the books under protest, at this point.

After reading Archangel's consort, I really looked forward to the stories of the Seven as they all are interesting characters and I love them almost as much as Raphael and Elena. However, Dmitri's story disappointed me. The author said that the heroine would be someone new, and because Dmitri is very sexually attractive to women, I hoped his match would be someone who didn't find him sexually attractive at all, and not a hunter because Elena is number one hunter in my heart. Besides, Dmitri didn't need a warrior partner, he needed a partner with a big heart, someone soft (but not weak) to counter his edgy characteristic. His wife was everything I imagined the heroine would be. The author made it like Honor was his wife incarnated and I wished that she did build Honor's personality that way, but the author created a weak copy of Elena: tragedy past but brave and resilient, innocent and compassionate. I didn't feel any interest in Honor, after got through half of the book, I started to skip the pages that described her thoughts/feeling to look for pages talking about Dmitri's past, Bluebell and Raphael and Elena. I hope that the rest of the Seven won't have any hunter partner.

The problem is Honor is sexually abused by vampires and then paired with Dmitri, a vampire who likes to mix pain with pleasure. That just doesn't seem realistic. She also gets over it too fast. It would have been better if she was paired with the angel Aodhan who doesn't like to be touched. The other thing was the reincarnation aspect of this story which to me takes away from the character Honor and it also takes away from the character Dmitri being able to move on and love again. I'd rather the story continued with Elena and Rafael as the main characters and continued to see things through their eyes. If this is the new trend of the books then I will be dropping this series.

Nalini Singh is one of my favourite writers, but this is the least enjoyable book she has written.
The male lead has been great as a secondary character in all prior books in the Guild series, but he makes no significant contribution to pleasure in this book.
The female lead is abused, sad, and lacks depth.
I didn't smile once all the way through this book.

Loved Archangel's blood, Archangel's kiss and Archangel's Consort. If Nalini had continued with Raphael and Elana stories I would have been quite content.

Archangel's blade is the story of Dimitri, first of the seven. I foresee all seven of raphael's getting books. Each of the seven falling in love and being redeemed/healed/etc. Which is an extremely over used literary device.

This book isn't too bad. Bad boy meets damaged good girl. Bad boy heals good girl. Good girl redeems bad boy with her love. Together they overcome nearly unnecessary bad guys from his/her pasts. It's not really original like the first three but it has a few surprises.

Dmitri’s book….I thought that his character had the most growth potential so far and I was not wrong. Were/Are you scared to read Dmitri’s book because in the first three he seemed like an unapologetic arrogant ass? I mean his actions thus far towards Elena have made him questionable in my eyes but then there is that fierce devotion to Raphael he has so I always felt that he couldn’t be all bad.

Well well well I was not disappointed. Dmitri is a complex character with a pretty heart wrenching backstory that explains

❶ - Why Raphael and he are so tight and have complete trust in each other.

❷ - Why he has been throwing his scent around toward Elena and altering between trying to seduce her or kill her.

❸ - What happened to the family and children he once had.

I was captivated by this story that is so much darker than the prior ones. When Dmitri meets Honor the Hunter assigned to help him capture a foe thought long dead he feels a spark that he hasn’t felt for a women in over a millennia. Honor has her own dark story and abuse to overcome. She was held hostage by a group of vampires for their ‘enjoyment’ and is still dealing with the PTSD she is suffering from that.

I liked Honor and how hard she started to work to put her life back together after hiding out for almost a year after her tragic attack. She was a strong woman who went through a horrible tragedy so it was easy to see why she and Dmitri would connect on some fundamental level as details from his past surfaced too. You could tell that even as he was being hard on Honor he was actually helping her deal with the residual issues she was having.

“Those who say vengeance eats you up are wrong—it doesn’t, not if you do it right.”

Being in Dmitri’s head also helped understand his motivations better and now I actually like the strange way he is working to help Elena to become a stronger consort and mate for Raphael. Please don’t think for a second that he is all sunshine and rainbows and kittens. He definitely isn’t, he is still brutal, hard and not mortal. But I know get the places that everything about him comes from and I really liked his dark and twisted story.

“Ever had a woman say no to you, Dmitri?”
“Once.” He turned the corner with a smile that made her want to cup his face, trace those beautiful lips with her own. “I married her.”

Add to that a little more development for a few other side characters and this is my favorite story from this world so far. I’m pretty sure I know who Venom will be matched up with later and since she threatened to chop his head off I will really enjoy that courtship when it happens. There was also a little more on the guild hunter Ashwini and the Vampire that is currently pursuing her. It does appear that Vampire courtships are aggressive and maybe a bit violent but definitely never boring.

I don’t want to say that I didn’t like Raphael and Elena’s story so far because I did but it was really nice to get a broader few of the world from a few other character PoVs in the story. I look forward to discovering Jason’s story next.

I must say I planned to enjoy this book. However I failed to. Generally the physical violence involving the two from the outset had been astonishing. Yeah I get the idea that Honor experienced a few trauma but it really still did not work for me personally.

I actually do take pleasure in Nalini Singh's books, her Psy/Chang and even Angel's Blood is definitely one of the best Paranormal Romance. Nonetheless from time to time her H/H turns out to be too psychologically damaged for me to get pleasure from. And I don't want to spend money on their journey in the publication. That has been the most significant concern and moreover, I do believe that she has created significantly better books in comparison with this.

THE GOOD:
We get to return to the world of Angel's Blood. This is an interesting world - I've never seen something with angels and vampires linked together. I also really love our protagonists from the first three novels, Elena and Raphael. I'm curious about the inequality in their relationship, and how the author will deal with the issue.

THE BAD:
The writing. Though I'm used to the flowery language in romance novels, I got really tired of the overwrought descriptions in this book. Even worse, the exact same words are used over and over again to describe things, e.g. wings of midnight and dawn.

The romance. I didn't buy the huge leap of faith in the plot that made Dmitri's love for Honor natural, even preordained.

The plot. I found it pedestrian. Solving the mysteries of who dunnit very much took second place to the characters' inner monologues, which quite honestly weren't even interesting because they were so repetitive.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
I am so disappointed in this book! Dmitri is a fascinating character, not the least of which because of his predilections towards heavy D/S. But in an effort to make this book mainstream, the author shied away from actually depicting pain in any of her scenes, which was a major let down.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, and I'm frankly shocked it got onto Amazon's best of 2011.