Thursday, February 11, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Angels' Blood by Nalini Singh

 




Angels' Blood is the first novel in Nalini Singh's Paranormal Romance "Guild Hunter" series.  Readers of this blog will know that I've started to read more SF/F romance books - and Paranormal Romance is essentially a type of fantasy romance - and so when I heard the duo of Kit Rocha (who writes SF romance with Deal with the Devil and the Beyond series) recommend Singh for people looking for more, I put her on my TBR list.  And when I needed a new audiobook for this month, I saw this book was available on Hoopla, so I picked it up.  

And Angels' Blood is a really interesting first novel in a long (like 10+ books plus several novellas) fantasy romance/paranormal romance series, featuring a world where angels rule the world, with vampires as the other supernatural species of note.  The plot intrigues and works well, ending in a satisfying way while also leaving open matters for future books.  But the romance....I have mixed feelings about, with it working well in terms of the lust and sexual attraction but having some consent issues that the book is clearly well aware of, but I'm not sure it handled as well as it could have.  

More explanation after the jump:


-----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Elena Deveraux is a Vampire Hunter - and not just a normal hunter, but Hunter-Born, capable of scenting out a vampire with her nose...and then skilled with the weapons it takes to subdue one and return it to its Angel master.  But after a routine hunt, she gets a message from her best friend Sara that her services have been commissioned by an extraordinarily client: Raphael, the Archangel of New York, one of the Cadre of Ten Archangels who essentially rule the world, along with their regular angel and vampire underlings.  And the job Raphael wants her for is no ordinary hunt: he wants to hunt Uram, another Archangel.  

But Uram isn't the only threat Elena faces as part of this hunt: for Raphael is no normal employer.  The Archangel of New York is devastating handsome, with incredible powers - including the power to enter and alter one's mind - and a personality unused to being denied what he wants.  And what Raphael wants...is Elena.  

Elena can't help lusting after Raphael, but damned if she's going to let some Archangel - mind powers or not - own her body.  But she can't help what she feels for the cold cruel Archangel of New York, and if she's not careful, her attraction might get her killed well before the deadly rogue Archangel gets his hands on her....
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Angels' Blood is a story mainly told from the perspective of its foremost main character, Elena, although the story does jump to a few others' perspectives on occasion (Raphael most often, but others jump in as well).  It features a world that is both like our own and very different - the main nationalities and cities we know of in our world still seem to exist*, but the world is essentially ruled by angels - who are not heavenly beings, but just a supernatural creature with wings and various psychic powers.  And then there are the vampires - humans who are "Made" (like as in gangster-type "Made") by angels into immortal blood sucking beings...at the cost of spending at least a 100 years in service to the angels.  And this gives rise to the third special being: the hunters, humans who hunt down vampires who either go on killing sprees or who simply try to skip out on their 100 year service, with those who are "hunter-born" possessing the strange power to track down specific vampires by their smell.  It's a really solid and well done world, and we get glimpses of how it works slightly differently in other parts of the world too that are ruled by other Archangels we barely get to know, which makes it easy to want to read more about it.

*Well sort of at least - the story takes place in New York City, one in which it's altered to feature at its center a tower built for the Angels to live, but even taking that change into account, the city is kind of unrecognizable to someone who knows it: there's no mention of the subway and our heroine takes cabs repeatedly, and some of the geography makes absolutely no sense.  If you're not a native New Yorker you may not notice it, but it might as well be generic city.* 

But this book focuses on Raphael's territory, this version of New York City (see complaint above), as Elena winds up in Raphael's circle trying to hunt down another Archangel who has fallen into darkness, all the while she has to deal with not just Raphael, but the vampires under him, other angels, her jackass human father, and a fellow Archangel with a possessive streak.  And this does lead to a fun action plot as Elena tries to find Uram before too many more are killed by him, all the while surviving all those who would threaten her life for it (and protecting her friends at the same time)*.

*There's a really nice touch in a scene where Elena is on the run and she decides that she'll make a stand in a place that will prevent her friends from coming to harm, but will also make it easy for her to find - and one of her friends knows immediately that's what she'll do and accepts it, which stood out to me compared to similar plotlines*

But this is a Paranormal Romance, so you're not reading it for all that: you're reading it for the romance and well the explicit scenes that result.  And the book is well aware of that, with Raphael being plenty willing to use filthy words right from the get go (worrying about Sexual Harassment he does not) and Elena feeling such a strong attraction to him that she's stimulated right from the start...even if she doesn't let that get to her so easily.  And yes it does lead to the sex scene you'd imagine eventually...although honestly, it's kind of a disappointment?  It's explicit but just short compared to all the foreplay without it being anything special.  So fair warning there.

But the bigger issue there is the consent issue, and the book is aware of it.  Raphael is not just an Archangel with a hierarchal power that makes it dangerous for Elena to say "no" - which she does - without being in danger of dying...but he has the literal power of mind control, which he may not have full control of it in his lust.  And Elena calls him on his bullshit of using it, noting that any use of the power to alter minds (not just for sex) is basically rape, which pisses him off but makes him realize what he's doing at the same time and causes a bit of a moment of reflection.  But the book can never really get around the power dynamic of it all....yeah Elena's eventual sex scene is consensual (she basically uses the sex to distract herself from nightmares) and she does fall in love with Raphael (and vice versa) but even without the mind control*, Raphael is repeatedly harassing her sexually up to that point and Elena really does have good reason to think the cost of saying no is eventual death.  

*The book essentially takes mind control out of play by midway through giving Elena the power to kick Raphael out of her mind at the cost of a minor headache, to avoid any future worries about it*  

Like, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Angels' Blood - its world worked really well, and the ending set things up for a future for this series that I suspect will avoid much of the above problems, and keeps me very intrigued.  So I might continue with book 2 eventually.  But Hierarchical consent issues aren't ever dealt with even if the mind control consent issues are, and even there, Raphael gets off the hook easier than he should.  Its an issue that many more recent books take care to avoid, and it bothers me that this older but not THAT old book doesn't.  

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