Book Review-Rebellion by Lou Morgan

Title: Rebellion

 Author: Lou Morgan

Series:   Blood and Feathers #2

Published:  July 2013 by Solaris

Length: 364 pages

Warnings:  gore

Source: publisher

Other info:  Book 1 is called Blood and Feathers

Summary : Driven out of hell and with nothing to lose, the Fallen wage open warfare against the angels on the streets. And they're winning.
As the balance tips towards the darkness, Alice - barely recovered from her own ordeal in hell and struggling to start over - once again finds herself in the eye of the storm. But with the chaos spreading and the Archangel Michael determined to destroy Lucifer whatever the cost, is the price simply too high? And what sacrifices will Alice and the angels have to make in order to pay it?

The Fallen will rise. Trust will be betrayed. And all hell breaks loose...

Review: After the end of Blood and Feathers, Alice knows the angels will want her again, but for now, she just wants to be able to get back to a normal life. she then gets ropes into working for an undertaker, who is also the Angel of Death. Then riots involving Descended and Fallen tip the balance in the ongoing fight for control, and Alice and the angels have a lot to lose.

I left Blood and Feathers thinking “this is so good!” I started the next book in the series literally ten minutes after finishing it, which is something I have never done before. The world and writing is addictive, which is why I couldn’t wait to start this.

All my favourite characters return. Alice, Mallory and Vin. Then there’s new favourite, Adriel, angel of Death, who, form his introduction, I envisioned as Undertaker from Black Butler and he lived up to coolness expectation.  Not sorry. Vin and Mallory are once again sarcastically funny at times with a lot of darkness at others. Marllory, I felt so sad for him when we were told what’s in his books. Zadkiel is awesome and we start falling in love with him and then that happens to him and Lou Morgan is evil.  Can we just talk about how great Mallory, Vin, Alice and Adriel are? The relationships are so real  it’s great spending time with the characters. My love of Lou’s portrayal of angels and demons is on par with that of my love for Supernatural’s, so that’s pretty big (extra points to Lou vs Supernatural for the lack of awful women treating!).

Plot is great. There’s more of the angels vs the fallen, with things getting worse and worse, and an angelic betrayal and things moving on quickly. at the end, I’m left wanting a lot more.

Overall:  Strength 5 tea to a great second book. I have made the decision to read ANYTHING Lou writes.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website |

Book Review-Blood and Feathers by Lou Morgan

Title: Blood and Feathers

 Author: Lou Morgan

Series:   Blood and Feathers

Published:  31 July 2012 by Solaris

Length: 384 pages

Warnings:  gore

Source: bought

Other info:  Book 2 is called Rebellion.

Summary : Alice isn't having the best of days. She was late for work, she missed her bus, and now she's getting rained on. What she doesn't know is that her day's about to get worse: the epic, grand-scale kind of worse that comes from the arrival of two angelswho claim everything about her life is a lie.
The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating; the age-old balance is tipping, and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act - or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever.
That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory - a disgraced angel with a drinking problem and a whole load of secrets - Alice will learn the truth about her own history… and why the angels want to send her to hell.
What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding - and can she trust either side?
Caught between the power plays of the angels and Lucifer himself, it isn't just hell's demons that Alice will have to defeat.

Review: Alice is not having a good day. And it all gets worse when her dad is killed in front ofher and two angels, Gwyn and Mallory, drag her into the war between Angels and the Fallen. The Angels fight contstantly to stop the Fallen getting too powerful, but the Fallen are slowly gaining the advantage. This is where Alice comes in. Due to her heritage, she will be very useful in the upcoming war. Therefore, she has to go to hell.

I’d seen Lou’s stuff around for ages, and seen how nice she is, but didn’t get round to this for ages.

I instantly fell in love with the characters, especially Mallory. At first, he seemed quite easy going, funny, and even adorable. By the end of Blood and Features, he’s done some very un-adorable things, but I still love his complete badassery. Alice is really cool, with unique powers and the fact that she doesn’t instantly pick everything up makes her lovelyly real. Also on the side of angels is Gwyn, bad cop to Mallort’s good, and Vin, who I loved (just cos of the Cantonese. I’m not sure if he’s meant to look asian, but he did in my head, so that’s all awesome). For the Fallen, there’s Xaphan and Rimmon, and a whole host of other fallen angels, who are creepy.

I love the way that Heaven and Hell have been presented-the way angels on Earth work, the relationship between the Archangels and the normal angels, the layout of hell, Charon (she’s a thing in ice!), that Lucifer can bodyhop his league, and so on.

The writing is sarcastic in some places, and funny in many places,  and in other places, very gory and graphic. The action scenes are described really really well.

Overall:  Strength 5 tea to one hell of a read. Can’t find anything to fault. Will read book 2 asap.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website |

Book Review- Foretold by Jana Oliver

So the world didn't end... yay!

Title: Foretold

 Author:  Jana Oliver

Series:   The Demon Trappers

Published:  2 August 2012 by Macmillan

Length: 416 pages

Warnings:  non-graphic sex, violence

Source: Publishers

Other info: The other books in this series are Forsaken, Forbidden, Forgiven. Foretold is the last in the series. Clicking on names leads to my reviews.

Summary :  Riley faces the final battle for humanity and Beck's heart—and Hell is the least of her problems
Now that Riley’s managed to (just barely) fend off Armageddon, everything’s changed. Well . . . most things. After their passionate kiss before the big battle in the cemetery, Beck is back to treating her like a little girl, as if nothing ever happened. While she’d love to just tell him off and move on, Riley vowed to take care of Beck the way he’s taken care of her since her father’s death—but she’s about to get a whole lot more than she bargained for. When she’s commissioned to go with Beck to his hometown and help him care for his dying mother, they stumble too close to a dark and murderous secret, one that Beck fears will drive Riley away from him forever. As chaos breaks loose, Riley may be Beck's only hope for redemption . . . and survival.

Meanwhile, up in Atlanta, it’s quickly becoming clear that Heaven may have won a battle, but the war is far from over. Riley and Beck face a stormy future, as Lucifer's ex-right-hand-man, Sartael, proves himself to be more resilient than anyone thought. He has Atlanta in his grip and is about to begin a brutal war with the prince of Hell. As the seconds tick down toward a final confrontation, it's up to Riley and the man she loves to finally defeat their old enemy, or lose everything they've fought for.

Review: I’ve been with this series from the start, so it’s really odd going into this book knowing that it’s the last one. So...yeah. Riley’s come back and the demons are planning their big uprising  and that’s all going to happen.  More important is Beck and Riley, and their relationship. They both realise how much they love each other, but that means that they also can’t hide from their pasts. 

Of the four, this is most definitely the most character driven book. And when I say that, I mean, by one person. Beck really gets the spotlight here, which is nice seeing as he goes through a lot of stuff in the earlier books and we now finally learn all the ins and outs of his backstory-his relationship with his mother, how he was generally brought up. I liked this, but I must say, it felt a bit different in the series. Compared to all the action, it’s both nice and a little bit “oh” to go back to relatively mundane events.

The second half is where it all really kicks off. There was so much happening! We got a lot of demons, both regular pyrofiends and geofiends and such, and a some other things. There’s a huge amount of action- fighting demons, Riley and Ori, and Beck learning to go his own way. There’s some rather intriguing things about the workings of the trappers and the Grand Masters and whatnot, which is good. And Jana’s depiction of Hell is really interesting-a little more on the emotional side of things.

Riley whines a lot in this one. I understand why, with people going missing and nearly dying and the fact that she’s now being expected to fight with Ori randomly and such. But it was a bit annoying. She has matured over the course of the series though. Beck, you just really feel like you have to give him a hug. His characterisation is the best-lots of attention to detail for his personality and thoughts, mainly his pronunciation but also his action tics in general. Ori also has really good scenes. I didn’t like him to start with because he was a bit stalkery and in the first book, useless, but Jana assured me that we’d see more of him further on-and we did. He was handled really well in Foretold and I loved his last scene, even though it was a little sad. But it fit so well with him . All the characters really have developed.

Riley and Beck are perfect for each other! *shipping them hard* They go through lots of things,  but get so much closer and happier.

The ending!!! It works and is so sweet and is also circular format with the start of the series. I’m glad Beck gets his happy ending and is doing well in terms of being a Trapper. The best thing about the ending of this book (and the series) was that it ended in the right place. Jana hasn’t been irritating and dragged out the series longer than it needed  to be. It ended at the right time-when the main story is over we’re satisfied, but still have space for headcanons.

Overall:  Strength 5 tea to a great ending to a great series. Though we won’t get any more of Riley, I’d definitely like to see more from Jana.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website | 

Book Review-Death, At Death's Door by Jill Thomspon

Title: Death-At Death’s Door

 Author: Jill Thompson. Characters created by Neil Gaiman

Series:  Sandman-Death

Published:   July 1st 2003 by Vertigo

Length: 192 pages

Warnings: Fantasy violence, nudity,

Source: Bought second hand

Summary : A member of the Endless, a family of beings who have existed longer than the gods, Death enjoys manifesting herself in the persona of a young Gothic girl. Along with her siblings, she interacts and influences the lives of humans on a daily basis. In this manga-style adventure, Death's little sisters, Delirium and Despair, have thrown a party at her apartment for hell's escapees. But as the festivities get out of control, it falls on Death's black-clad shoulders to regain order and save the afterlife. Printed in black, white, and gray tones, this trade paperback weaves an eccentric tale of danger, romance, humor, and fun

Review:  This is a book vaguely tied into Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, with a different spin on it. It focuses on Death rather than Dream, and has a completely separate storyline. Lucifer abdicates and gives the key to Hell to Dream who doesn't particularly want it. And while Dream hears from rulers of other Underworlds as to why they should claim Hell and its inhabitants, said inhabitants leave. And end up in Death's apartment and at some point start having a party. The story is generally Death, with sisters Despair and Delirium, trying to work out how to send the  partyers back to Hell where they should be, and how she can save her carpet.

I read the Sandman series some time ago and didn't really get what the plot was(don't shoot me. I only read Preludes and Nocturnes and I don't get what happened. I'll review it another day...). However I read this and really enjoyed it.

It's a much lighter and easier to read take on the Endless. As well as Death, we also see a lot of Despair, Delirium and a bit of Desire(who looks too much like a feminine Elvis for me). It's a nice way of getting to know them.

The concept and plot was good. Any party that is literally from Hell is, by me, worth checking out. And it was done very well.

The sub plot of Dream and his old lover was interesting, another facet to the Sandman we didn't see in the first book. 

I like the way the mythologies were woven together-Lucifer having his domain, and then rulers of other underworlds having theirs, and when Lucifer leaves said other rulers can come and ask for the key. Sorry if this is hard to understand, but it was hard to explain. You'll have to read the book to understand what I mean.

The art was good. As I said, Desire looks too much like a feminine Elvis for me to like him, but the other character designs were good. I like the way Thompson put her own spin on the appearances of the characters while still keeping their distinguishing features, such as Death's ankh and eyeliner.

Overall:  Strength 4 tea to something for fans of the Sandman comics and  anyone looking for a quick fun read.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Jill Thompson website | Neil Gaiman website