Black Wings

Author: Christina Henry

Publishing Company: Ace Fantasy (the Penguin Group)

Blurb:

As an agent of death, Madeline Black is responsible for escorting the souls of the dearly departed to the afterlife. It’s a 24/7 job with a lousy benefits package.

Maddy’s position may come with magical abilities and an impressive wingspan, but it doesn’t pay the bills. And then there are her infuriating boss, tenant woes, and a cranky, popcorn-loving gargoyle to contend with.

Things start looking up, though, when tall, dark, and handsome Gabriel Angeloscuro agrees to rent the empty apartment in Maddy’s building. It’s probably just a coincidence that as soon as he moves in, demons appear on the front lawn. But when an unholy monster is unleashed upon the streets of Chicago, Maddy discovers powers she never knew she possessed. Powers linked to a family legacy of tarnished halos.

Powers that place her directly between the light of Heaven and the fires of Hell…

The review:

This review might be sparse, I read it quickly in a day, so it may not be very detailed. However, straight off I have to tell you the blurb is extremely misleading. You expect this mysterious guy to come in, a few odd things that happened while he was living there, that type of thing. But that wasn’t the case. To be honest, he came in and annoyed her almost straight away, then her friend was attacked and then things started to link up. He hadn’t moved in when the weirdness started.

Also, her friend who was attacked. I’d have loved to see more of him. He was barely in it and it made me sad because he should have been in it ten times more. He seemed like a very interesting character that just wasn’t explored at all. It made me sad.

Ok, so the basic plot in the book is summed up in the blurb. How she deals with demons and the real idea of Heaven and Hell, and her newly found father and a lot of things like that. She grows into what should be a very powerful character, but I just thought that she seemed too powerful and things went too fast. And throughout the book she did a lot of passing out. I think it counted to about six times? That got a bit annoying after a while.

I’m going to go onto characters. Madeline wasn’t too bad if I’m honest. She seemed lost, which annoys me from books like this because all female leads seem to act the same way. Lost and bewildered. It works in some novels. This one, it didn’t. I felt that because Madeline already had this insight to this world, or a small part of this world, so she should have been able to deal with it a bit better.

Then there’s Gabriel, who’s the guy that the reader should fall in love with. You know the type. I didn’t feel him though. I found him annoying and too strict and all of this. I feel like I’m not explaining this well. He’s just a type of person that you’re going to either like, or not. And I didn’t. Granted he wasn’t the worst character in the book, but he wasn’t the best in my eyes.

There was also Beezle, her protector. He’s the gargoyle. And he wasn’t as grumpy as I expected. I mean he was, but he seemed to be more concerned about her to be grumpy about anything. A lot of the time he was just relieved.

This is a rubbish review, but I found the book rather blah. I’m sorry I just did. I thought it would be a lot better.

My rating:

Setting: 4 out of 5

Characters: 3 out of 5

Plot: 3 out of 5

Writing: 4 out of 5


Thanks for reading x