REVIEW: Archangel’s Sun by Nalini Singh
Dear Nalini Singh,
In Archangel’s War, the last book in your Guild Hunter series, Illium’s father, the archangel Aegaeon, awoke from Sleeping. His return caused a seismic shift in Illium’s mother, Sharine, otherwise known as the Hummingbird. After centuries spent in emotional pain and in and out of a fog, with little left to hold on to, Sharine was seized by anger at Aegeaon and it snapped her back to reality. Sharine, considered angelkind’s greatest artist, even took over the running of Lumia, a repository of angelic art.
As Archangel’s Sun (book thirteen in the Guild Hunter series) begins, Raphael, New York’s archangel, relays the ruling Cadre’s request that Sharine assist Titus, Archangel of Africa. Months after the catastrophic war between archangels, the world is still recovering and Titus is now responsible not only for his own territory but also for what were evil archangel Charisemnon’s lands. Titus is blunt enough that some of his subordinates have quit and the hope is that Sharine can smooth out his rough edges.
Titus’s territory is infested with the dead Lijuan’s zombies, the reborn. The late, unlamented Charisemnon enhanced them and they collaborate, lay ambushes, and afflict others. Titus and his people are locked in a seemingly never-ending battle with them and have no time to cater to a fragile artist. But the Hummingbird is considered a treasure to all angelkind. Rejecting her would be a great faux pas.
Sharine decides to fly to Titus’s citadel herself instead of taking a plane. It’s only a two-day trip and she wants to fly low to the ground and get a feel for the situation. She dresses in simple, practical clothes, ties her hair back in a ponytail, packs only a couple of outfits in a backpack. She also brings the cell phone Illium gave her though she barely knows how to operate it.
On her way to the citadel Sharine lands in a deserted village and finds signs of a reborn attack. In a pile of half-burned bodies, she spots an elongated, unnatural hand and records it with her phone.
Sharine is annoyed to be given a luxury-filled suite, a studio for her art, and a closet full of frilly dresses when she arrives at Titus’s stronghold. Titus has made the (reasonable) assumption that she is a delicate flower. His attempts at consideration come across (also understandably) as patronizing.
Titus can tell that Sharine is displeased and though it’s in his nature to come out with blunt opinions, he bites his tongue. She is, after all, the great artist and an international treasure. This only irritates Sharine more.
Sharine surveys the battlefield on her own initiative the next day and when she spots reborn, fire shoots out of her hand. Searching through millennia of memories, she realizes that she has had this ability for a long time though she has not exercised it in many centuries. Titus is surprised but happy to find a use for her.
When Sharine shows Titus the video she filmed, he notices that the misshapen hand made a slight movement. She doesn’t have coordinates and he needs her help to locate that village so they fly there together. They frustrate each other, impress each other, and become more aware of one another.
They are much different, though. Titus is a mere 3500 years old, but Sharine is ancient despite her youthful appearance. Titus is widely known to have rough edges and Sharine to be a shrinking violet. He is responsible for Africa and she for Lumia; neither can abdicate these responsibilities. Sharine is just recovering from the horrifying thing Aegaeon did to her. Titus, usually perfectly satisfied with brief affairs, tries to view Sharine as a great but fragile artist, not as a desirable woman. If he hurts a hair on her head, the Cadre will come after him.
At the village, Titus and Sharine discover evidence that the reborn infection may have crossed to angels. If so, it could be catastrophic. Angels must be viewed as invulnerable; their unquestioned power keeps lawless vampires in check.
Has the devastating disease indeed infected angels? Can Titus clear his territory of the reborn? Will Sharine heal from Aegaeon’s betrayal? And can Titus and Sharine find a way to be together?
The best thing about Archangel’s Sun is Sharine. I have never seen heroine like her before in this or in any other paranormal series—an ancient woman with a grown son. I loved the way Sharine’s age grants her wisdom and gives her age-related vulnerabilities: a fuzzy memory, disconnection from the modern, unexercised muscles, unfamiliarity with slang and technology. I loved the way that, speaking to centuries-old beings, she addresses them as “child.” And that none of this prevents her from being capable, insightful and focused.
Titus is fun—a good battle strategist, big-hearted, straightforward and confident. Though anything but humble, he isn’t (unlike some angels) vain or haughty. The first word that comes to mind is cuddly. Titus is an alpha in the leadership sense but also a man who embraces others. He values anyone who contributes skills, whether angel, vampire or human. There have been other diverse protagonists in the series but I believe Titus is the first to be described as having “skin of the darkest brown.” That was great, too.
Titus’s cuddliness made him a less believable archangel, though. It’s been drummed over and again that archangels must sometimes be terrifying and take ruthless and scary actions to control their territories and maintain their positions. I couldn’t imagine Titus having ever struck terror into anyone’s heart. We see strangers fear him due to bad experiences with Charisemnon but that’s a different thing.
Sharine and Titus are a cute couple. The older woman / younger man trope is getting a bit more common, but is still pretty unusual and fresh. Sharine’s age made me love her, and Titus’s admiration of her made me like him a lot. There’s a fun, charming dynamic where Titus exudes confidence and Sharine tries to puncture his ego before it inflates too much (not that it ever does).
Here are a couple of examples where Sharine teases Titus.
Titus crouched down to examine one particular set of prints. “I’ll have to look at this more fully in the daylight.”
“Wait.” Bringing out the phone device, she pressed the symbol Illium had shown her would bring light. It shot a glow, bright and sharp, onto the tracks. Pleased with herself, she said, “You really should get one of these. It’s quite clever—I can see why my boy loves it so.”
In this next one, Titus’s sisters are referenced.
“Truly, they’re wonderful.” A smile so deep he could almost touch it. “They do adore you, you know. Such praise I’ve heard of your exploits, Titus. If I didn’t know you, I’d think you a god among men.”
He scowled. “I am a god among men.”
The setup is contrived. At that point in the story no one, not even Sharine, is aware she has martial powers to contribute, and her past frailty is well-known and fresh on everyone’s mind. Given her history she could easily have been more hindrance than help so sending her to Titus makes no sense.
Titus and Sharine act inappropriately toward others a couple of times. Titus invites Sharine to sit in on a conference call with the Cadre, but asks her to stay off screen. It’s lovely that Titus is wants to include Sharine but letting a civilian eavesdrop on a Cadre meeting isn’t right. I doubt most of the Cadre would be pleased if they knew.
Another moment of unsuitable behavior comes when Sharine tells Kiama, a young, bereaved warrior angel, how she’d feel were she one of Kiama’s dead parents. First Sharine, a near-stranger to Kiama, asks Kiama to open up to her about a personal tragedy, and then, almost immediately, she lectures. She means well but it’s presumptuous.
I wasn’t happy Sharine felt she had to be even-handed in her treatment of Illium and Aodhan either. I’m sorry, but no. In the event that their rift turns into a hurtful and permanent break, attempting to be there for both of them equally would harm her relationship with Illium. In such an eventuality Illium would need her to be there for him—and she has already hurt him in the past by not being there for him. To be a good mother sometimes means showing loyalty to one’s child, not being there for the person who (however worthy) may soon hurt him beyond repair.
Of course that won’t happen, in these books things always resolve happily. And of course she means well. But Sharine doesn’t know she’s a character in a happy ending series so I would have liked to see her act as if the possibility that Illium and Aodhan’s friendship could go pear shaped exists. That she doesn’t isn’t conducive to viewing her as a thoughtful mother.
I had a tangentially related issue with regard to Sharine’s past. I understand, intellectually, why what Aegaeon had done to her is horrible. But—and maybe it’s because I’m not an immortal—it’s hard for me to view it as genuinely horrifying. Cruel, yes. But so awful as to cause her to live in a fog of pain for centuries, frequently in inaction, distance or silence? Even though she had a son who tried to connect with her? I can’t see it that way.
I’m glad Sharine acknowledges the harm her mental absence has done to Illium but I would have liked to see parallels drawn between the choice personal difficulties drove her parents to make when she was young and her own reaction to a difficult situation when Illium was young.
It’s also hard to reconcile the Sharine of the past with who she is in the present day. More flashbacks could have helped me piece it all together into a full picture of one person who had grown and changed. Instead she read almost like three different people, first the young, vulnerable Sharine, then the confused, fragile Hummingbird, and finally the more resilient Sharine of the present.
Another issue was in the development of the romance. The first third is delightful but in the middle things get more familiar and predictable. By the two-thirds mark it’s clear that there isn’t anything substantial to keep Titus and Sharine apart.
Things speed up too quickly on Titus’s end, too—he realizes he wants Sharine to stay with him only a handful of days after meeting her. He has never, in 3500 years, felt that way about anyone, and has never been in a long-term relationship. That makes his abrupt desire read as almost rash.
Since Titus and Sharine don’t have many differences to hash out in their limited days together, it doesn’t feel like they’ve truly had an opportunity to plumb each other’s depths. Sure, they’ve shared some stories and made inferences, but it doesn’t feel like a full exploration. Relationship conflicts in romances serve not only as a way to keep readers absorbed, but also as a way for each character to get to the bottom of the other person. I missed that here.
The storyline about the possible infection held my interest fairly well for a lot of the book. As one might expect from a book in this series, it was gory and disturbing with a creepy-yet-exciting turn of events late in the book. After that it was pretty clear how things would go in both plots (the infection and the romance) and I stopped feeling driven to read fast. Mid-book there were also one or two moments when Titus dreaded that something horrible would happen to Sharine but then nothing unusual happened—that read like a flimsy way to keep readers in suspense.
Another issue that bugged me is that Titus’s territory is referred to as Africa while some of the other territories are what we in our own world would consider countries (India, China) or in one case, a city (New York). I would have liked to see specific cities in Africa depicted, and shown as modern and bustling. Lagos, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Nairobi, are nowhere to be seen. Cairo is mentioned but only in its historic context. Instead we get references to cities that go unnamed, for example, “Khan’s on the ground in one of the cities worst-hit by reborn in the north.” Villages are shown much more closely. This plays into stereotypes of Africa.
There were some new characters introduced that I enjoyed meeting: Trace, who assists Sharine in running Lumia, Tzadiq, Titus’s second, Ozias, Titus’s spymaster, and others. The author has a gift for depicting a character clearly within a few paragraphs of introducing them and it is utilized here.
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I liked the Sharine / Titus pairing. Sharine was a fresh, unconventional heroine and she made the book for me. Titus was appealing and great for her. Their dynamic was fun and sometimes amusing; I can picture them happy together, enjoying each other for centuries to come so despite all my nitpicks I’m giving this one a B-.
Sincerely,
Janine
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Janine, thank you for reviewing this! I picked it up on Tuesday and finished it that night. Then I had to immediately go back and reread the previous two books… just finished Archangel’s War. Would have finished it sooner if I hadn’t been hosting Thanksgiving and cooking the turkey yesterday – pesky holiday! (Very small gathering, just our social bubble.)
I do have to correct one thing you said. Trace is not a new character, as he appears or is mentioned in both Archangel’s Prophecy and Archangel’s War. He was one of Raphael’s Tower guys. He may have appeared in some of the earlier books as well because his name is really familiar to me. Also it should be noted that Titus’s second is Galen’s father, and Galen’s mother is Titus’s weapons master (at least, I think that’s her title). That’s Galen’s position among Raphael’s Seven. His parents were a bit disappointed when Galen chose to serve Raphael instead of staying in Africa.
Anyway, I loved Sharine, too, and Titus has always been one of the most likable archangels. I think that Sharine’s overreaction to the treachery of Illium’s father can be traced to the fact that she had experienced trauma in the past that was so similar, and yet her lover chose to do it to her again. Plus it had affected her son so badly. (Trying not to be too spoilery.) Anyway, it made sense to me. Plus I love the fact that Illium smacked down his dad so firmly in the previous book.
Nalini Singh deserves a lot of credit for making all of her characters diverse. Interracial couples are her normal, if that makes sense, so it isn’t surprising that she’s done it again with the lead couple in this book. I strongly suspect that the next book might be about Aodhan and Suyin, another such couple. (I am not shipping Aodhan and Illium.) I think she’s saving Illium because he’s such a fan favorite and his book could be spectacular.
I would grade this book a little higher than you, though not the best of the bunch, but that’s partly because I really prefer the Elena and Raphael-centric books. I like books about continuing characters best, one reason why I prefer In Death, Mercy Thompson, Alpha and Omega, Kitty the Werewolf (have you read those? I think you’d like them) and an eclectic group of authors (Carola Dunn, Dorothy Sayers, Deanna Rayburn, Ilona Andrews and others) rather than straight romance these days.
The only book in this series I don’t reread much is the first one. Raphael and Elena simply aren’t very likable in that book, and remind me of the “I love you! No, I hate you!” type of romance, which I generally don’t enjoy.
@Kari S.: Apologies in advance for the lengthiness of this comment.
Thanks for the correction re Trace. I had forgotten him. And yeah, it’s good to mention that Titus’s right hand and weapons master are Galen’s parents. My review was so long already and that’s why I skipped that.
Re Sharine’s reaction to Aegaeon‘s actions. I got all that, but centuries? I can understand her behavior lasting a decade or two, but centuries seems excessive, especially given that Illium needed her to be there for him and had no other parent to turn to. And all the more so since she knew firsthand how damaging abandonment could be.
Agreed on the diversity in Singh’s books. And she was doing it long before it became mainstream.
I think you are wrong about Aodhan / Suyin. I don’t have a strong investment either way but I think there are a lot more breadcrumbs leading in the Aodhan / Illium direction. And I thought this bit of dialogue might be a hint that a Suyin / Aodhan pairing isn’t in the cards:
Also, though I could be wrong, Nalini Singh’s silence on the topic reminds me of her silence on whether Hawke and Sienna in the Psy / Changeling series would be paired. That was also controversial (in that case because of the age difference) and she kept mum until Kiss of Snow was about to come out.
For a long time my favorite in the Guild Hunter series was Archangel’s Blade. I loved the way the darkness of the world matched the darkness of the characters’ backstories. It was cohesive to an unusual degree. I also loved it because I really disliked Dmitri before I read it and I was impressed that the author was able to make me understand him and care about him. He’ll never be a favorite of mine and neither will Honor but their journey seized me by the lapels and wouldn’t let me go.
However, the last couple of times I tried to read the book, I felt it was still good but not as terrific as it was the first time or two. I hang up on the Ingrede / Honor differences. There was something similar to that in Sharine’s characterization here. There is not really a strong connection between the Sharine of the present and the Sharine of the past.
I’m not sure which one I would choose as a favorite now. I do like the Raphael / Elena books a lot. Better than I did in the beginning. #1 was very good but #2 was too disturbing for me and #3 felt like a retread of #2. Somewhere around Archangel’s Legion I started to like them a lot again and that’s stayed consistent since. The last two or other-couple books before this one (Ashwini / Janvier and Holly / Venom) were fine but not great.
I read Naked in Death in the 1990s and the violence turned me off. I might feel differently today; I don’t think my standards for that are the same as they were then. The other thing I had an issue with was the worldbuilding—I wasn’t persuaded by the futurism. I didn’t fall in love with Eve or Roarke so I moved on.
I read the first Mercy Thompson and then my interest petered out. Years later I decided to read them again. This time I made it through book four and then stopped. I may continue at some point though I feel no urgency to.
I love the Alpha and Omega series and think it’s much better. It helps a lot to have both Anna and Charles’s POVs. I’ve read the introductory novella ten or twelve times by now and Cry Wolf maybe three times. The later ones aren’t as marvelous but are still good. I love Anna and Charles in a way that I don’t love Mercy or Adam.
I have never read Kitty the Werewolf. Tell me all about it!
Of the other authors you’ve mentioned I only read Ilona Andrews consistently and even there, not all their series. Hidden Legacy is my favorite of their series and I’ve read all of the books in it.
WildfireWhite Hot is my favorite of all their books; it’s terrific. I loved the first Edge books and the others less so but I still liked them.The first time I tried the Kate books, I bailed after the first book. Years later I was encouraged to go back and stick with them and somewhere around the end of book three or the beginning of book four I finally got into the series. I think I’m at around book eight or nine now? Magic Binds is the one I need to read next. I’m on a hiatus but will probably go back and finish since I’m very curious about how things resolve with Roland. I’m also interested in the Hugh books and don’t want to read them ahead of finishing the KD series.
I tried the first book in Deanna Raybourn’s first series back when it came out and it didn’t hook me. I avoid Sayers because I’ve heard there’s quite a bit of antisemitism in her books (I’m Jewish). I have never read Carola Dunn.
I like the first Raphael and Elena book better than you do. It does have some of the love / hate vibe but I don’t mind that if it’s not excessive. I love the introduction to the world and how visual it is. I love the scene where Elena shot Raphael and how it changed the color of some of his feathers. Also the last scene of the book is terrific. I guessed it would happen but I still loved it.
My main issue with the book was the question of why Elena. Raphael had been around for thousands of years and had many warrior lovers, but he didn’t fall in love with any of them. So why with Elena? But I feel the later books answer that so I got over it.
Oops, I meant White Hot, not Wildfire. But they are both excellent.
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This was my second favorite of the series (I am still partial to Archangel’s Storm).
It made sense to me that Sharine would spend centuries in a fog for two reasons. One, centuries are basically like years for immortals. And two, she’d been existing with so much unresolved pain for centuries already. The way she described it in her thoughts in this book worked for me (that her mind already had cracks and what he did shattered her because it was so deliberately cruel. Plus she believed
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which contributed to what happened. Also, I was under the impression she had periods where she was more lucid during the time in question.
Finished the book, overall not bad. I also had a hard time with Sharine “fog” centuries, and then almost of a sudden she is back to normal. I compare her “fog” years to a depression. Knowing people with depression and how hard it is to live and function with it, I am a little unsure how to view Sharine miraculous return to normal.
It looks like NS is going to write I/A paring which will be awesome, on the other hand I am not sure she will write it. Hopefully she will. As for Titus/Sharine pairing, I liked it. What I did not like is this book is how Sharine and Titus are dealing with Ageaon (sorry my spelling is incorrect, and I do not have a book next to me). It felt almost cartoonish to me. Some of the parts of their interaction where interesting and his explanation for his action was valid. However, in the next sentence NS ruined it with for me with Sharine treat and Augeon reaction to it. I am in no way justifying Augeon action but his explanation to it was trustful. In general, NS description of her “villains” are somewhat cartoonish.
One of the things that bothered me is her description of Alexander and his feelings for the other Archangel (I think her name started with Z). In previous book, it did not read (at least to me) that she was the love of his life, only someone who had a passing relationship with him. In this book all of a sudden, he is heartbroken because she is sleeping. I wonder if we will get a book for him. Would also like to read a book about Raphael mother.
As always in this book there were no casualties of a war. Yes, many died, none that we know or care about. I kind of expected it. It was interesting to read about a pandemic during a pandemic. I know she did not do it on purpose but it was still very cool.
I am kind of in a place where I cannot find a good books and authors to read. I absolutely love Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, enjoy Nalini Sing, and Kresley Cole (not sure what happened to her). I sometimes read Nora Roberts, and while I like them, they are somewhat repetitive in her writing style. If you have similar tastes, please recommend a book or an author to me.
@library addict: I’m sorry I missed your comment this morning. Second best in the series is high praise. I am glad you enjoyed it so much. I loved Sharine, she was such a different heroine. I do agree that what Aegaeon did was cruel but in the scheme of things and considering she had a son who needed her it seemed like an overreaction.
Centuries are like decades to them, I agree, but in real life I would expect no more than say five years loss of self tops on that basis so it seemed to me that she should have gotten over it in ten thousand, fifty thousand years tops. Centuries was too long in my eyes. I might feel differently if Illium had not been in the picture but she had a child and he was left alone but for Raphael. I did forget the part you mentioned in the hidden spoiler, thanks for reminding me. It doesn’t change my feelings though.
And absolutely, she had more lucid periods. But we saw her during at least one of those periods in one or more of the earlier books (I think she was in one of those when Illium introduced her to Elena) and even then she was only partially lucid (as opposed to catatonic). She was still off in the distance, in and out of awareness of others and of the world. Illium could not go to her with his hurts as he does in this book. It was more the other way around. He was her caretaker and her rock and not the other way around, almost as if he were the parent and she the child.
Don’t get me wrong, I have sympathy for what Sharine went through. It was extraordinarily hurtful. But people suffer extraordinarily hurtful events and though badly hurt and even damaged, they live with that pain so that they can be there for their children.
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@Nati: The comparison to depression is interesting. I have lived through depression, even major depression, and it can be debilitating. You can’t feel as you think you should. Basic functioning can be very difficult. And I saw parallels here like you did, but there were differences too. I think in one of the earlier books Sharine (then “the Hummingbird”) was so deeply in her fog she wouldn’t even speak or respond to words. It was a long time ago so I could be remembering incorrectly. But that was the impression I had and I’ve never heard of depression doing that to anyone. Some of it can be laid at the door of her age, I think.
You make a good point about her miraculous recovery. I never thought of it that way but I think this ties to my feeling that Sharine and the Hummingbird were almost different characters. The young Sharine (before Aegaeon’s actions) was fragile, the Hummingbird even more so. Yet here Sharine seems to find a core of strength that she has never had in millennia of life. I think if the recovery had been less sudden and complete, if there had been some faltering and backsliding, it might have been more fully believable.
Yes I agree w/r/t the parting scene between Sharine and Aegaeon. It started out really well but then went off the rails.
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Re Alexander and Zanaya (I had to look up her name), I got the impression when she first awoke and he saw her that there was something between them, but that the relationship was antagonistic in addition to the attraction. I didn’t realize it went that deep until this book but I guess it could have. He might not have wanted to admit the depth of his feelings until he effectively lost her. I also wondered more than once if she was the mother of his son.
I don’t care that much about Alexander’s story. I liked the idea of Zanaya with him but isn’t two archangels together too hard to sustain? I have considered Alexander / Caliane too but there’s the same hurdle there.
I would love to have Caliane’s story. I think she could be a wonderful heroine and I’d love to see her paired with a younger, not archangelic but nevertheless powerful and brave angel. It would take someone who can stand up to Caliane for her to respect and to fall in love with. And I think she could do it and it could make her a better person. I would read that in a heartbeat.
I’ve wondered, though, if Raphael’s father will turn out to have survived after all. There was a scene in Archangel’s War where Raphael and Elena talked with Caliane and Caliane was sad an nostalgic over the loss of Nadiel. In a later scene, after Caliane sent Raphael’s picture of his father, Raphael told Elena that he wondered if his mother only remembered the good in his father and not the rest. When Elena asked him to share more of his thoughts, Raphael said that though Nadiel loved Caliane fully and faithfully, he was irresponsible and took unnecessarily dangerous risks (such as for example refusing to Sleep when the healers told him he would go mad if he didn’t).
I’m curious what the purpose of these conversations is, what Nalini Singh is setting up with them. It doesn’t seem relevant that Nadiel was irresponsible, boyish and uncareful, and that Raphael remembers that but Caliane doesn’t admit it, unless Nadiel is about to make a comeback. So I think maybe he somehow managed not to fully die and crawled to a place where he could Sleep. I hope that if he makes a comeback, that Caliane will come to see his flaws and move on with someone else. Of course all this is speculation and I have no idea where this will go. Likely he really is dead and there is another reason for the characters to reminisce about him.
I agree re the wars. Based on the number of casualty-free wars (both in this series and in the Psy / Changeling series) I don’t think we’ll ever see a side character we genuinely care about die.
(Personally I wouldn’t mind at all if Elena’s sister Beth bites the dust. She annoys me.)
I’ll write a separate comment with book recommendations for you when I have time.
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@Janine:
I was under the impression (and could totally be wrong) that she had a lot of times when she was better. During her “fog” she still managed to do her art. The event with Aegaeon happened about 400 plus years ago, right? So just after Raphael had become an Archangel (since that happened around the time Illium was born). She was there enough to have helped Aodhan at least somewhat after his attack (IIRC took place 200 years ago). I didn’t get the impression she was often catatonic, just that she was sometimes lost in the fog but even then still able to paint.
Also I thought she was already getting better before Aegaeon reappeared. She left the Refuge to visit New York in, I want to say Enigma but it was possibly a different book. And she’s placed in charge of Lumia in book 9. I realize not that much time passed between Archangel’s Heart and Archangel’s War, but it wasn’t as if his return was the sole cause of her getting better just because she realized how angry she was with him.
I agree 100% she wasn’t as present with Illium as she should have been. I have this issue with the Psy/Changeling series too.
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I know it’s a quick and easy way to give the characters childhood trauma, and it can work to an extent, but it bugs me a lot.
On another note, I am looking forward to finally getting an on page scene between Galen and his mother, Tanae. I liked the scenes in this book between Tanae and Titus.
@Janine
After reading your reply, I thought about Callaine/Nadiel story. I guess it can go in two ways. First, he did not fully die and will make an appearance at some point. In that case, I would like to see them dealing with all their baggage and making it work. I am a sucker for returning love theme. Technically, both went insane at some point and if Callaine can recover maybe Nadiel can too? Second, reincarnation. Nalini already went that route so she can do it again. If she does go this route, I hope it will be different than with D/I/H (I loved their story). I am not sure about a new younger hero for Callaine, he will need to deal with her and with Raphael. In my opinion, it can only be another Archangel. As for Alexander, I would like to read his story but maybe with someone new, not with Zanaya or Callaine.
LOL regarding Beth, I do not like her that much either and it would have a huge impact on Elena and her father, her grandparents. It could be a very emotionally impact story.
I would also like to see more of Galen and his parent’s interaction. You know, when I was reading it, it bothered me that Sharine suddenly becomes an expert on relationships. She was giving advice for a lot of people and for someone who was in a fog for a lot of time, did not deal with her own issues, it did not ring true to me that she could advise on parent/child issues.
@library addict: Good points about Sharine’s recovery.
W/r/t parental abandonment in many of Singh’s books, I hated it in the early days of the Psy / Changeling series and I still am not a fan. However at least in the Psy / Changeling series it was explained in one or more of the books that this goes along with a mating bond. I took that to mean that it wasn’t something the parents had a choice about, really—it was just the effect of the mating bond on anyone who was bonded in such a way. So I didn’t like it at all, but i was able to accept it as part of the worldbuilding.
With Sharine and the Guild Hunter books there is no equivalent and in fact we have seen Dmitiri survive for centuries after the brutal deaths of not just his wife but his children as well. True, he became colder and harder, but he was able to survive it without getting lost in fog. So in these books it seems like more of a choice than in the Psy / Changeling world and it bothers me more for that reason.
@Nati: If Nadiel comes back and is still the way he was described, I would not be interested in reading his story for a long time if ever. From the way Raphael described him, Nadiel read like he was childish and immature. And if that’s what he’s like he will have to spend time growing up before he can be a partner for Caliane or anyone else.
Re Caliane, I agree that an archangel would be a better match for her except that it’s already been stated that two archangels can’t be in the same place at the same time for long.
On another point, do any of you think that now that there aren’t enough archangels to make up a full Cadre, it’s a hint that Illium will ascend?
@Nati: I’m trying to think of recommendations for you. The first one that jumps to mind is Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series. It’s Urban Fantasy with some romance but the supernatural characters are fae or changelings (part fae). There aren’t any vampires or werewolves but there are witches, selkies, and other animal shifters.
The heroine of the series, October Daye, starts out the series recovering from having been turned into a fish for fourteen years. In the meantime her human boyfriend and daughter, neither of whom knows about the fae, felt abandoned and moved on. October (Toby for short) is, like Kate Daniels and Mercy Briggs, a loner at first but gradually acquires friends and allies, including a teenage squire, Quentin.
There is also a romance triangle but as in the Mercy Thompson books it’s resolved in the first handful of books and after that Toby is in a relationship with the same guy. The romance is sweet as a counterpoint to all the danger Toby faces. The first couple of books aren’t that good but the series hits its stride in book three, and book four is a game-changer.
McGuire has another (lighter) popular UF series, the InCryptid series. I haven’t read those yet so I don’t know that much about them. I should disclose that I have a tenuous connection to the author; I share an agent with her.
I am a big fan of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London UF series (the first book is titled Midnight Riot In the US and Rivers of London in the rest of the world) but these have just a touch of romance and not nearly as much as series like Ilona Andrews’s and Patricia Briggs’s do. Let me know if you want to know more about them and I will give you a longer description.
Another popular urban fantasy series is Anne Bishop’s The Others series, starting with Written in Red. I’m pretty sure there’s a romance in it though I haven’t read it. Kim Robinson also has a popular UF series or two but i haven’t read them other so I can’t say if it’s romantic or not.
I don’t know if you read any YA fantasy but if you do may I recommend Graceling by Kristin Cashore? This has a fantasy world where some people are born with “graces” or powers. Each graceling has a unique power. Katsa is graced with killing and is made her uncle the king’s thug and enforcer. Secretly, Katsa is also a founding member of the Council, a group that aids people in need.
Katsa meets Po, a younger son prince, when he comes to visit from another kingdom. Po is also a graceling; his power is a mystery for much of the book so I won’t say more about that. Po and Katsa hear of another kingdom where the king may be evil. His wife has died and his daughter, aged around twelve, may be in danger. So Katsa and Po travel there on a mission to find out more and, if necessary, to rescue the princess.
This is the start of a series (book four is coming out in a month or two) and it has a romance complete with a HEA or HFN. The books in the series all focus on a different couple and there is one book in the series where the couple part amicably at the end but the other two books finish with them happily together. Since the books are YA the coming-of-age elements are more primary than the romances but the romances still get a lot of pagetime. They are also accessible; the fantasy world is uncomplicated and easy to grasp.
I hope more readers chime in with recommendations for you.
@Janine and @Nati, I’m a big fan of Anne Bishop’s Written in Red and the Others series. To answer your question, Janine, there is a very slow romance that develops over the five book series.
To give you an idea of my preferences, Nati: I’m a big fan of Patricia Briggs, like most of Nalini Singh’s oeuvre, and only like the occasional book by Ilona Andrews (The Edge series comes to mind).
I will second the Aaronovitch series that Janine mentioned but far prefer the Others series.
Have you read Thea Harrison’s Elder Races Series? I’d describe it as paranormal romance. You mentioned Nora Roberts. Have you read her futuristic mystery romance …in Death series under the name JD Robb? A few of my favorite books and series are the Linesmen books by SK Dunstall (science fiction with the barest hint of romance); Lyn Gala’s the Claimings series (male/alien male romance); The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (fantasy that leaves the reader uplifted); and Anne Cleeland’s Scotland Yard series (mysteries with a slight paranormal element and something of an antihero; you’ll either like this or throw the book across the room!)
One more comment ~
@Janine, you said, “I love Anna and Charles in a way that I don’t love Mercy or Adam.” I feel the same way.
@Nati – I love the Elder Races series and to a lesser degree Andrews’ Hidden Legacy series. I’ve gotten way behind on all of Nalini Singh’s series but have liked what I have read. I almost always read romance or books with romantic elements but, in a strange twist, Martha Wells is my favorite author. Most of her books have a romantic element but are mostly about found family. Her Murderbot Diaries doesn’t have romance but is amazingly good and strong on found family. I also really like Devon Monk’s West Hell Magic series which is Urban Fantasy. I don’t read a lot of contemporary but I do like Lucy Parker/Elle Pierson and Jayne Ann Krentz. Some of JAK’s books are paranormal romance.
I really liked Anne Bishop’s Others series except for the non-series but connected book Wild Country which I really did not like. I thought some of the characterizations contradicted the worldbuilding in the main series, a minor criminal dies a gruesome, torture-porn-like death, and the ending was mildly depressing.
I don’t know how it happened but I recently discovered Timothy Zahn who writes mainstream SF. I don’t generally read either hard SF or male authors, but have really liked his books. No romance, but I’d recommend his Quadrail series. His protagonists tend to be very likable and competent.
MaryK, we have a lot of overlap in our favorites, so I’ll certainly be taking a look at the Quadrail series you mentioned.
Another author you might consider, @Nati, is Melissa F. Olson. I’ve enjoyed all of her series some of which intertwine.
@Nati – You might try Darynda Jones’ Charlie Davidson series. I remember liking the first book but never got around to the rest of them. I have trouble following long series for some reason.
@Kareni – I’ll be interested to hear what you think of the Quadrail series.
Okay, now it’s my turn to apologize for a very long post!
Janine, I apologize that it’s taken me so long to respond to your questions. I did a Guild Hunter series reread (everything but Angel’s Blood and Archangel’s Blade, because I really don’t care for Dimitri). I enjoyed them all to different degrees, though as with any author there are little things that irritate me. It’s the “insta-lust” that bugged me this time around. Also, I really hope that’ the Legion reappears. I miss them!
One of the things I did was look closely at the relationship of Aodhan and Illium. I don’t read m/m, but I just couldn’t see any indications that either of them leaned in that direction. All of Illium’s previous affections were for women. But we shall see, eventually. I understand what you mean about The Seven being family to Aodhan which would keep him from leaving Raphael’s service permanently, but I do think that a romance for Suyin is going to happen, and I haven’t been convinced that Aodhan isn’t going to be her consort. We shall see!
The Kitty the Werewolf series is by Carrie Vaughn. There are 13 novels with Kitty as protagonist, and two books of short stories. There is also a book about a friend (her husband’s cousin, who is possessed by a ghost) followed by two novellas about him. Plus one book about Rick, a vampire who is Kitty’s friend. The books are urban fantasy (though several take place in the country) with Kitty as first person narrator. She’s a nighttime disc jockey who comes out as a werewolf on the air, with a lot of trouble the result. They’re a lot of fun, but sometimes nice people get killed. The first title is Kitty and the Midnight Hour and the last is Kitty Saves the World. I recommend them highly. I got them from the library (I’ve been burned by buying a bunch of books in a series that I ended up disliking) but ended up buying them later. There’s a lot of humor, but sometimes Bad Things Happen.
I too recommend The Others series. However it does get old after awhile when humans just don’t get it – they can’t fight the Others and win! Otherwise I like and reread them.
I tried Darynda Jones but her humor doesn’t work for me. I bought the first six but didn’t get through more than two or three. I like The Parasol Protectorate (Gail Carriger) and the other two series set in the same world but some of the stand-alones are too explicit for me. I tend to skip over sex scenes but that’s hard to do when they last about thirty pages…
You asked about Carola Dunn. First she wrote a whole bunch of really well done Regency romances, and I’ve read some of them. Miss Jacobson’s Journey might interest you because it features a Jewish hero and heroine. Then she switched genres about thirty years ago and started writing cozy mysteries about Daisy Dalrymple, set in the 1920s. They are sweet and feature a long courtship/marriage between Daisy, a nobleman’s daughter turned career flapper, and Alec Fletcher, a middle-class Scotland Yard detective who’s a widower with a daughter. The first title is Death at Wentwater Court (1994) and the latest is Corpse at the Crystal Palace (2018). That may be Daisy’s swan song because Dunn’s website doesn’t say anything about more titles. The last one did feel a little tired to me. Daisy just has this pesky habit of stumbling over dead bodies…
Regarding Dorothy Sayers, I don’t know what to say about whether she was anti-Semitic. She does feature stereotypical language about Jews being good with money, as if it’s a racial characteristic (Peter says “He’s a Jew so he knows what he’s doing” concerning an investment). One of Peter’s closest friends ends up marrying a Jewish woman (her father was the victim in Peter’s first case, Whose Body?) and it doesn’t seem to shock or bother Peter or his family. But I’m not Jewish, and don’t have a hyper-awareness of racism, particularly in fiction written in the 20s and 30s. It’s unpleasant, but while it would bother me intensely in a modern novel, stereotyping was a fact of life back then. (Outright racism is harder to forgive.) I think sometimes we are too sensitive or quick to take offense when none was intended. Full disclosure: I also speak with a certain amount of privilege as I am white with Northern European ancestry, and have never had to face racial prejudice.
Try Kitty and Daisy. You might like them!
@Kari S.: No worries.
I hope the legion come back too.
Re indications of Aodhan or Illium leaning that way— there was this in Archangel’s Heart (I just looked it up):
I took that to mean that all angels have the potential to be LGBTQ+. Keir’s comment about living for a thousands years suggests that when you measure your life by centuries or millennia, you have more time to explore all the possible permutations of your sexuality and your preferences.
As well, why bring this up now and not before? It reads to me like she is setting the stage for a more prominent same-sex relationship with at least one bisexual character in a future book.
I agree Suyin will get a romance, and I’ll enjoy it if it’s with Aodhan but I think it’s more likely to be with someone else.
Thanks for the scoop on the Kitty books and on Carola Dunn’s. Her mystery series sounds like it has a great setup.
I looked up Sayers and antisemitism because more than one person has said that to me. It seems that people are divided on it—some think Sayers was antisemitic, while others defend her. But what I found most interesting is this article (in Moment, a magazine focused on Jewish American life) about how her take on Jewish people ties to her personal history:
https://momentmag.com/curious-case-dorothy-l-sayers-jew-wasnt/
@Kareni: That’s cool. Most people seem to prefer the Mercy books but to me Charles and Anna are much more touching and have a deeper connection than Adam and Mercy do.
@everyone — great discussion of UF / PNR series. I am sorry I missed it before.
I liked reading archangels sun and fell in love with Titus. I don’t understand why didn’t you mentioned Andromeda and Nasir and Andromeda’s parents. She should have been included specially after charismenons’ daughter came into existence
@Radha: I love Andromeda ( she is one of my favorite heroines in the series) but I forgot all about her connection to Charisemnon! Thanks for reminding me.