Written by Damien Smith | 02 December 2011

Archangel’s Blade (Nalini Singh). 

Gollancz 2011, ISBN 978-0-575-11347-3

Archangel’s Blade is the fourth instalment of Nalini Singh’s best-selling Guild Hunter series.

In contrast to the previous three books in the series, this instalment is clearly centred on Dmitri, the Archangel Raphael’s second and leader of his Seven.  Raphael, along with his consort and protagonist of the first three novels Elena, take a back seat this time around and are only minor players in what is Dmitri’s own story.

Dmitri becomes enthralled early in the story with guild hunter Honor, sent to aid him with some ancient translations that seem to indicate the return of a long-dead monster.  Honor herself is just emerging from a deep, dark place having been previously rescued from several months of imprisonment and torture at the hands of an unknown band of vampires.  Her story revolves around the rebuilding of confidence in herself and the world around her, and tracking down and exacting revenge on those who took her.  Dmitri vows to aid her in this task whilst continuing his own investigations due to a remarkable similar imprisonment nearly a millennium before. 

Through the search for Honor’s antagonists and Dmitri’s dead monster we are also introduced to Sorrow, who had a similar horrific experience at the hands of Uram, archangel gone bad, back at the start of the series, and who is now under constant observation for any physiological changes due to the fallen archangel’s ministrations.

All these additional plotlines — Honor’s return to the world, the hunting of her enemies, Dmitri’s search and Sorrow’s redemption — seem to be purely vehicles to develop the relationship between Dmitri and Honor. Dmitri begins as we’ve known him throughout the series — s a cruel, violent, alpha-male who can and does take what he wants; however, he softens during the book to draw out Honor, who is still haunted with flashbacks and bouts of terror from her captivity.  The relationship develops well, if predictably, but disappoints with a convenient and unrealistic conclusion that to my mind cheapens Honor’s character and several hundred pages of well-written development.

Fans of the series will find plenty to enjoy here.  There are the same character-driven plotlines, brutal violence and chapter long sex scenes all mixed in together. If you like romance and violence (separately or together), sweaty fight scenes, sweatier sex scenes, strong willed yet damaged female protagonists and impossibly manly, dark and mysterious males with haunted pasts, then this will be squarely up your alley.  If long descriptions of body parts pressed suggestively against skin-tight clothing and darkly suggestive thoughts haunting characters at inopportune moments are not your thing, then maybe avoid this one. However, if you’re picking up this book then you’ve probably already read the first three in the series, so you’ll have a pretty good idea what to expect.

A full listing of Nalini Singh’s books, author’s blog and forthcoming news is available at her website at http://www.nalinisingh.com/.