Archangel's Light

 

Archangel's Light (Guild Hunter #14)- Nalini Singh 

Berkley Publishing

Release Date: October 26, 2021

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Illium and Aodhan.  Aodhan and Illium. For centuries they’ve been inseparable: the best of friends, closer than brothers, companions of the heart. But that was before—before darkness befell Aodhan and shattered him, body, mind, and soul. Now, at long last, Aodhan is healing, but his new-found strength and independence may come at a devastating cost—his relationship with Illium.

As they serve side by side in China, a territory yet marked by the evil of its former archangel, the secret it holds nightmarish beyond imagining, things come to an explosive decision point. Illium and Aodhan must either walk away from the relationship that has defined them—or step forward into a future that promises a bond infinitely precious in the life of an immortal…but that demands a terrifying vulnerability from two badly bruised hearts.

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Aodhan has spent the past year helping new archangel Suyin find her footing in China, the territory that keeps on giving- in the horror movie sense of the word. As extra help moving her people from one of Lijuan's area's to a new, "safe" part of China, Raphael sends Illium to assist. When patrols discover a suspiciously empty village of seemingly vanished people, Aodhan and Ilium stay behind to investigate.They'll have more than their own issues and ghosts to deal with, for Lijuan has left at least one last unspeakable monster behind to walk in her footsteps. 

Archangel's Light tells the story Guild Hunter fans have been waiting for: Illium and Aodhan. Illium, the seemingly carefree angel, always playful, always curious, always kind to mortal or angel alike. Aodham, the angel made of sparkling light but trapped in mental darkness, a tortured artist slowly coming out of his protective shell. We know they've been friends their whole lives despite seemingly opposite personalities. We know something unspeakable happened to Aodhan that he's only now mentally healing from. We know their relationship has been rocky the past year or so as they struggle to find new footing as Aodhan finds his new self. And we are pretty sure we know what they haven't figured out- they belong together in every sense of the word.

Singh takes the phrase "slow burn" to a whole new level here, probably because most readers are going to be familiar with the backstory of her main characters. She isn't just telling us the 'today' story, she's giving us their past stories as well.  How they first met, early triumphs, Illium's infamous first love, Aodhan's capture and torture at the hands of other angels. The highs and lows that shaped them into who they grew up to be both individually and together. It took a little while for me to get used to this style of back and forth, but I ended up liking it more than I expected too- possibly because it often came as a welcome break to some heavy hitting horrors in the 'today' portions of the story. Vague spoiler-ish warning: Singh does not pull any punches in her descriptions of the latest atrocities so have a strong stomach ready for when the guys go searching for danger.

A lot of Archangel's Light seemed to be about the downsides of being immortal. How easy it becomes to lose your core goodness and light (if you had it to begin with) to petty cruelties that become larger cruelties because of boredom or madness. Lijuan is always the main example, but thanks to Illium and Aodhan's comparative youth they see it in many of the others around them as well- even in Raphael and Dimitri before those men found the women they now love. They constantly question what people missed about Lijuan's descent into madness while acknowledging some things are acceptable in the angelic world that the human world wouldn't accept. Most characters see Illium as the rare example of an angel who might never let immortality harden them, although Aodhan and even Suyin are also mentioned as possibly being the same way. Each of these people has suffered and now tries to find a balance in their life, a light to the darkness they know exists in the world. As much darkness as we find in this book, the light of hope is continually held out for those who can see it, and those brave enough to reach for it and work to keep it lit.  Something we can take great inspiration from in these days.

Weaving past and present together, Archangel's Light is a complex tapestry of friendship and love and loyalty that reaches soul deep. It asks strong people to bare emotional weaknesses that could leave them destroyed or fly higher than ever before, and in a triumph of world building and character creation, takes readers soaring on an incredible ride along the way.

Well Matched

 

Well Matched (Ran Faire #3)- Jen DeLuca

Berkley/Penguin Group

Release Date: October 19, 2021

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Single mother April Parker has lived in Willow Creek for twelve years with a wall around her heart. On the verge of being an empty nester, she’s decided to move on from her quaint little town, and asks her friend Mitch for his help with some home improvement projects to get her house ready to sell. 

Mitch Malone is known for being the life of every party, but mostly for the attire he wears to the local Renaissance Faire—a kilt (and not much else) that shows off his muscled form to perfection. While he agrees to help April, he needs a favor too: she'll pretend to be his girlfriend at an upcoming family dinner, so that he can avoid the lectures about settling down and having a more “serious” career than high school coach and gym teacher. April reluctantly agrees, but when dinner turns into a weekend trip, it becomes hard to tell what's real and what's been just for show. But when the weekend ends, so must their fake relationship. 

As summer begins, Faire returns to Willow Creek, and April volunteers for the first time. When Mitch's family shows up unexpectedly, April pretends to be Mitch's girlfriend again...and it doesn't feel so fake anymore. Despite their obvious connection, April insists they’ve just been putting on an act. But when there’s the chance for something real, she has to decide whether to change her plans—and open her heart—for the kilt-wearing hunk who might just be the love of her life.

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Another year, another Faire, and perhaps the pairing that Jen DeLuca fans have all been waiting for. Emily's (Well Met) sister April is getting her house ready to sell and their friend Mitch offers to help. Best known as a popular gym teacher and kilted Scotsman during Ren Faire, Mitch is easy-going and the life of every party. He and April have always been more frenemies than friends, but they discover they can help each other out: she needs another set of hands for home renovations, he needs a pretend girlfriend for a family dinner to get his family to take him more seriously. One stained deck turns into multiple projects, one family dinner turns into a family weekend. April and Mitch discover things about each other, the most important being how well they work together. But April has been hurt badly before and is used to doing everything for herself and not letting her walls down for anyone. Can the Faire do its magic and match Mitch and April?

You can virtually guarantee that when two people who don't really like each other are forced to spend time together, they discover a completely different person beneath that annoying surface facade.  Mitch's facade has been the happy-go-lucky jock since day one, the player who's dated every woman in town. Readers have guessed there's more to him than that, and we've all been waiting to see it. Well Matched takes its time peeling back his layers since we see him from April's point of view but even if this is your first book in the series you know instantly that Mitch has more going on than he lets us see. What I liked was that so does April, and Deluca does a skillful job of showing April and Mitch mirror each other's insecurities. The difference is that we seen April having her internal meltdowns while looking (mostly) calm on the outside, we can only guess at the mental dialogue going on in Mitch's brain. They are both the swan looking calm while paddling madly below the water line and hoping nobody sees.  

I loved April and really related to her. She's a loner, perhaps by personality, definitely helped by the emotional and psychological blows dealt to her by her husband divorcing her while she was pregnant.  She panics around people or when she becomes the center of attention, and pretty much just wants to move to a city because there you are almost expected to be anonymous.  That has always been her plan so why change now? She's always defined herself as a mom and never thought about what would make her happy for herself. Now that Mitch is making her question her plans and comfort zones, April has to decide if happiness is worth facing her fears. 

Well Matched contains some lovely scenes between April and Caitlin as Caitlin reaches graduation that would make any parent tear up (I did and I'm not even a parent!); some delightfully sizzling encounters between April and Mitch; wonderful girl time with April, Stacey, and Emily; Ren Faire magic; and hot guys in kilts. Something for everyone to enjoy! Jen DeLuca once again entrances with a lovely romance story readers won't be able to put down. Huzzah!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Cry of the Firebird

 

Cry of the Firebird (Firebird Faerie Tales #1)- Amy Kuivalainen

BHC Press

Release Date: October 14, 2021

Rating:📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: A firebird is reborn on the borders of Russia, a gate to a world of monsters and magic is breaking, and only a reluctant, untrained shaman stands in the way of a flood of supernatural darkness...

Anya is still reeling from the death of her grandfather when a strange encounter with the Finnish God of the Dead changes her life forever: Her family has been guarding the gates to the Russian otherworld on their farm for centuries, and she’s the new gatekeeper. Worse, if she doesn’t awaken her magical abilities and assume her new role, the gate will break, unleashing a flood of monsters and dark gods into their world.

As Anya struggles to make sense of her changing world, she can’t deny the strange encounters. She’ll need to accept her fate and work with the legendary firebird if she hopes to survive—and protect humanity.

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Amy Kuivalainen (Magicians of Venice series) proves her world building abilities are as strong as ever with her new series, Firebird Faerie Tales. In this first book we meet Anya, a young woman who has been having a rough time. She's trying to make a go of her grandfather's farm in Russia after his death but her biggest success is in emptying vodka bottles. Then one day Tuoni, the Finnish God of the Dead appears to explain the facts of her life to her: her family has long been gatekeepers between the mortal world and a magical world and if she doesn't wake up and learn how to use her magic and control the family's gate within the next six months it will fall apart and allow all kinds of otherworldly creature free reign in the human world. Although on the bright side, magic users will probably brutally kill her for her magic way before then. Good luck. He also gives Anya a stone that he says has been in her family for centuries and is now hers to care for. Anya would love to pretend this is all a vodka fueled dream except that night the stone breaks and a firebird hatches out of it. Who then turns into a man. And that is the most normal thing Anya experiences for awhile.

Cry of the Firebird throws Anya and the reader into the deep end of a world that mixes "normal" and magic in intriguing blends. Fortunately, you don't need to know anything about Russian or Finnish fairy tales to understand, let alone enjoy, the story. Along the way Anya gathers unlikely friends and allies as she tries to learn enough about her magic to not get herself or anyone else killed and prepare to close her family's gate- especially as it becomes clear that the gate is unravelling faster than Tuoni had first predicted. Like in the Magicians of Venice series, Kuivalainen gathers an ensemble cast with radically different abilities, characters, and reasons for being together that works really well when a description of them suggest they wouldn't. Here the cast is larger and more varied and we get to know more of them right away, romantic (or at least sexual) interests flare faster, and fight scenes are epic. Light and Dark are not quite what you think they are and there is always a price to be paid.

Kuivalainen takes traditional myths and turns them into something uniquely her own in this new and engrossing novel. I already can't wait for book two in the series and am hoping someone will discover how brilliant all her books would be on Netflix.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review