Archangel’s Blade

Guild Hunter, Book #4

By Nalini Singh

ISBN# 9780425243916

Author’s Website:  http://www.nalinisingh.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

*Beware of Spoilers*

Honor St. Nicholas is a Guild Hunter, but has been hiding out in the academy ever since she was abducted, held prisoner, tortured, and violated by a group of depraved vampires.  Her captivity lasted two long months, but the effects have been everlasting.  She is now afraid to go on a hunt and is terrified of all vampires.

The Guild Director, Sara, has decided it’s time to give Honor a little push and has assigned her to a case that requires her to work at the Tower with the powerful vampire, Dmitri, deciphering a tattoo on a murder victim that was written in some unknown language.

Dmitri instantly smells Honor’s fear, but is drawn to her for some mysterious reason.  He makes it his mission to get her in his bed.  But the more he’s around Honor, the more she reminds him of his mortal wife he lost over a thousand years ago.  Honor brings all the painful memories of his spouse and children, and their untimely deaths, not to mention his own captivity by the evil angel responsible, to the forefront of his mind.

It angers Dmitri to realize the pain Honor went through at the hand of his own race.  The fact that the vampires behind her torture were never caught is unacceptable to him.  Now that he’s met Honor, Dmitri is making it his personal aspiration to find those responsible and bring them to his own sick kind of justice.

I have really been struggling reading these past couple of books in the Guild Hunter series, and they haven’t been holding my interest at all.  Maybe I just needed a change of pace?  A new romance apparently was just the ticket!  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it was definitely one I didn’t want to put down!

We’ve been reading about Raphael’s broody and dangerous Second throughout the series.  We’ve seen him taunt Elena with his scent lures, his words, and his actions.  We all knew that he had a dark and sordid past and that something always seemed to be troubling him, with danger lurking just beneath his surface.  Now we finally get to see it laid bared to us readers in Archangel’s Blade.  And, it’s more terrible than I had ever imagined.  I have no problem with Dmitri being the dark knight so to speak, in fact I think every series needs a character like him.  I found that Dmitri brings a dark humor to the series that is surprisingly engaging.  It was nice seeing exactly how he came to be the dark presence that he is today, but I enjoyed some of the glimpses of his more innocent days.  Although sometimes the flashbacks were a little too frequent for my tastes, especially when he was in the middle of an intimate scene with Honor.  But the book was still great and I’m so glad that Singh didn’t change Dmitri’s character once he found love and that Honor instead accepted him for who and what he is.

“After they were both done, the pile of knives and guns on the coffee table looked like they’d cleaned out an armory. “I think we have a problem, Dmitri.”

Honor is equally as broken as he, but Dmitri has had decades to bury his pain and sorrow, living as Raphael’s enforcer among other things.  Honor’s anguish is still very fresh in her mind.  I think it was great to see Honor finally get justice for what had been done to her.  And, the idea of hurting those vamps over and over again, thanks to their healing ability, was appealing to me at least!  And, I’m glad that she had someone willing to oversee such a punishment!

The one thing I found myself not liking in this book after awhile was Dmitri constantly comparing Honor to his wife, like he could never truly see HER for who she is.  We all knew there was something there, and it ended up being abundantly clear by the end of the book.  So by the end it no longer bothered me.

I really enjoyed this couple and I loved how they were able to help heal each other.  I found myself not liking just Dmitri, but Honor as well.  Sometimes I really struggle with liking the female leads as they all start to blend in with one another after awhile.  But that wasn’t the case with Honor, she was a character that I could really get behind.

This is one of those books that I wished had gone on a little longer.  I would have loved another chapter to wrap up the two main things that Honor and Dmitri had planned at the end of the book.  But regardless this was a great addition to the Guild Hunter franchise and I’m hoping that we continue to get glimpses of this amazing couple as the series progresses.

Now I’m anxious to dive into Jason’s book and I am hoping and praying we get an Illium book in the near future (he’s my favorite of the Seven, or at least he was before this book)!

“Bluebell,” she said, remembering from Erotique. “Pretty name.”

“I call Dmitri Dark Overlord.”

“Shae,” Dmitri said and the female vampire rose at once to walk quickly into the house. “Now, pretty Bluebell” another languid stroke across her skin “tell the Overlord what you discovered.”