Title: Reaver (Lords of Deliverance #5)
Author: Larissa Ione
Release Date: December 17th 2013
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Received from the publisher via NetGalley
WARRIOR OF HEAVEN
Reaver is an angel with a past, a record, and a less-than-heavenly attitude. Powerful enough to fight alongside the fiercest battle angels-and crazy enough to risk his wings on a one-way mission to hell-he's agreed to go where no angel has ever gone before...to steal the most seductive and dangerous prize of Satan himself.
ANGEL OF HELL
Harvester is one of the Fallen, a once-heroic angel who sacrificed her wings to work as an undercover agent in hell. But now her cover has been blown, and she's been doomed to an eternity of agonizing torture. Even if Reaver can snatch her away from Satan's lair, even if they can fight their way out of the underworld's darkest depths, there is one thing Harvester can never escape-her newfound thirst for an angel's blood...
My Thoughts
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was expecting a little more from Reaver by Larissa Ione. Because with such a long history to their love/hate relationship, I was anticipating a whole lot of fireworks and tension to be present between Reaver and Harvester. However, I found the first half of the book – while nearly all based in Sheol (Hell) – rather tame and restrained.
I just wanted so much more pain, torture and pure evil that is associated with Satan, Lucifer and Hell, to be rained down on Harvester and Reaver! I also felt that Harvester lost what little bitchiness she had in this book all too quickly and easily and Reaver… Reaver didn’t feel like the Reaver I’ve come to know. He felt like a shadow of his former awesomeness!
However, the second half of the book picked up quite a bit (thank God!)
I loved re-visiting characters from the Demonica series; I loved the interactions and excitement I always feel with the Horsemen and when it was all said and done, I ended up loving Reaver!
Larissa Ione made it work; she came through at the end. Reaver and Harvester got their HEA (of sorts) and Heaven and Earth were saved (for now)
And with so many secrets revealed, little hints at things to come, I can happily sweat it out and speculate about the next book in this great series (roll on May 2014!) 4 stars
Title: Rogue Rider
(Lords of Deliverance #4)
Author: Larissa Ione
Release Date: November 20th 2012
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Received from the publisher via NetGalley
They're here.
They ride.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Born
of a match between good and evil, four siblings stand between hell's
minions and everything they want to destroy. They are the Lords of
Deliverance, and they have the power to ward off Doomsday . . . or let
it ride . . .
Jillian Cardiff came to this remote mountain
town to forget the demon attack that almost killed her. Instead, she
rescues-and falls for-a gorgeous stranger who has no memory of anything
other than his name. Handsome, charming, and protective, Reseph seems
like the kind of man whom Jillian can trust. But with hints of a
troubling history of his own, he's also the kind of man who can be very
dangerous . . .
Reseph may not know why he mysteriously appeared
in Jillian's life, but he knows he wants to stay. Yet when Jillian's
neighbors are killed, and demon hunters arrive on the scene, Reseph
fears that he's putting Jillian in danger. And once it's revealed that
Reseph is also Pestilence, the Horseman responsible for ravaging the
world, he and Jillian must face the greatest challenge of all: Can they
forget the horrors of a chilling past to save the future they both
desire?
My Thoughts
So this is going to be one of those reviews that is hard to write because I'm finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts, but in doing so, will probably piss off half the population of Ione fans!
I wanted to love Rogue Rider.
I had high hopes for Reseph and the woman who would be his mate.
I wanted so much for this to be a real bad-boy-gone-good-but-still-a-little-bad-but-finally-comes-good emotional roller coaster of a read.
But what I got was a weak, disjointed, convoluted mish-mash of a story that I found to be unappealing and boring.
Don't get me wrong, there were a few moments of the brilliance that is Larissa Ione's story writing, but around the 45% mark I was bored and stopped reading it for a few days. I couldn't connect with Jillian, I found her to be cold, unlikeable, and far too staid and Reseph was too nice with barely any hint to his Pestilence past - the whole thing just felt off to me.
And once I picked Rogue Rider back up, I had the Aegis, DART, the other Horsemen, the Watchers, Demonica characters and Archangels to add to the story and the whole thing became a juggling act - and I was dropping the pins fast!
At the end of the day, I love Larissa Ione's characters but I just felt that she sacrificed some of Resephs story in order to round out and tie up some ends and create new plot lines.
Will I continue to buy her books? For sure!
Am I already dying to read Reaver's story? Absolutely!
But for me, this was probably her weakest book in the series and only gets a 3.5 stars out of 5 :]
