Archangel’s Legion by Nalini Singh

Title: Archangel’s Legion (A Guild Hunter Novel, #6)
Author: Nalini Singh
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Gollancz Fiction (31st October 2013)
Blurb:

Nalini Singh, the New York Times bestselling ‘alpha author of paranormal romance’ (Booklist), returns to the immortal world of violent passion and lethal power . . . on the brink of a deadly archangelic war.

Angels are falling from the sky in New York, struck down by a vicious, unknown force.

Vampires are dying, impossibly, of disease.

Guild Hunter Elena Deveraux and the Archangel Raphael must discover the source of the wave of death before it engulfs their city and their people, leaving New York a ruin and Raphael’s Tower under siege by enemy archangels.

Yet even as they fight desperately to save the city, an even darker force is stirring, its chill eyes trained on New York . . . and on Raphael. Rivers of crimson and nightmares given flesh, the world will never again be the same . . .

Rating: **** (4 stars)
Review:

ARCHANGEL’S LEGION is the sixth book in Nalini Singh’s brilliantly hot GUILD HUNTER series. The story focuses on the Archangel Raphael who lives in New York, and his consort Elena Deveraux – a Guild Hunter. In ARCHANGEL’S LEGION the events of the previous five books come to a head, and The Cascade crests. Things are changing in the world of the archangels, and nothing will ever be the same.

I was really excited to get back into the world of GUILD HUNTER and find out what was going on with Elena and Raphael, who I should probably confess are my favourite characters in the series. A lot happens in ARCHANGEL’S LEGION, so I found the book to be a real page turner – I just had to know what happened next. When I reached the end I was actually quite sad because I wanted to be more, not because the story felt incomplete or anything like that, but because I didn’t want it to end.

The plot of ARCHANGEL’S LEGION is a seemingly simple one: someone is making a power play against Raphael. However, Singh weaves much more into the plot than that. She also reintroduces characters from the previous novels and novellas in the GUILD HUNTER series. There are also some new characters introduced, and there is a heck of a lot of action as well as some really steamy romance between Elena and Raphael – all in all, everything you would expect from a novel in the GUILD HUNTER series.

Battle lines are drawn, and battles fought in this book. I think Singh did a very good job both building up the tension in the narrative, and describing the fight scenes. There are also some really quite poignant moments, where we get to see a more “human” side to some of the characters. Singh did a really good balancing all these different scenes out, and keeping the narrative coherent. All in all ARCHANGEL’S LEGION is a great addition to the GUILD HUNTER series, and I am looking forward to seeing how things develop in this world in future books.