I understand this is a debut novel, so for that it wasn't bad. It was kind of short. Or was that just me? Also, apparently this is the first book in a series. For that to work for me I needed more information. More about the world and how it came about. More about the angels and nephilim. How did they come about? Does everyone know about them or is it just a select few?

Maybe book two will clear these things up, but I wanted more now.

I guess what I'm saying is that I wanted to enjoy the book but vital information in my opinion was left out. Things that would have made it more enjoyable. I was just left with the feeling of wanting more.

I would recommend this book but just don't expect too much.

Enjoy!

If you are a fan of fantasy and root for ladies taking centre stage, this could be an interesting read for you. Set in a world where humans, angels and nephilim (part human, part angel with special power/ability) co-exist, the first of this series shares a glimpse of the characters and their powers.

The Order - organisation that controls all beings.
Watchers - organisation that experiments on nephilim to tap into their powers.
Descendant - special nephilim born with a multitude of powers.

Sophie is an unregistered nephilim who has been hiding from the Order. She had managed to stay under the radar since her escape from the Watchers but the appearance of Lea; tasked by the Order to get close to her is threatening her cover and the secrets she keeps.

As a big fan of X-men, Avengers and the like, the special powers possessed by different nephilim were exciting to me. Some could telepathy with beings and animals, others could control water, call on fire, read minds, hypnotise, prophesy and so on. What I really enjoyed was the wealth of possibilities for its sequel as there are so much more to develop and expound on the story. That being said, the book could have been better edited and drawn up to give readers more insight on the romancing of Sophie and Lea and beef up on the duel scenes.

I just reviewed In Search of Angels by Ashley Wade. Thank you NetGalley and Ninestar Press for the ARC.

2.75 Stars. This was fair. Unfortunately, this is my second debut read in a row that I struggled with. While better than my last read, I never felt like I connected to the story. I’m a huge urban fantasy fan but because of that I can be a bit picky. While this story did not work for me, your mileage may vary some.

I liked the premise about angels and Nephilim, which in this book means half-angel, half-human. I also liked how they had unique powers, sort of Xmen like, but I didn’t really like how the premise evolved from that. You could tell the author was trying to set things up by explaining these beings and the different organizations that control them, but simple things were left out like do humans know about them? Clearly some do but do they all? And while simple things were missing, the more complex ones were too. I really wanted more history about the why and how of these beings. It’s a series, maybe more is to come on that front but overall I needed more world building.

This barely made novel length at fewer than 50k words and I think it should have been a novella instead. In my opinion, this book really needed another editing pass. I have an ARC copy so I’m sure a lot of the obvious mistakes will be fixed, but the book as a whole really needed to be tighter. I had some issues with too much telling, not always knowing who’s POV I was in, and some pretty big repetition issues.

The romantic relationship is built on no-communication. The characters are constantly justifying to us why they can’t tell the truth to the other characters. This is where the repetition comes in over and over, and I felt like they either needed to talk to each other or just go their separate ways already. I swear just taking out the repetitive excuses about why they can’t communicate would cut this novel down to novella length.

The romance itself was very flat for me. This is where the telling came in as we are told over and over how much these two like each other but I never actually understood why. I never saw or experienced chemistry or a connection between them. It felt like since they were two sapphic ladies that they had to be together, instead of forming a real attraction. There were no explicit sex scenes, which are fine, but I needed some form of intimacy to believe in their connection. There was almost no touching and nothing more than a quick kiss or two, while we are told that they are sleeping together. I just wanted a good make-out session or something to help me believe in them as a couple.

This book does end on a medium-ish cliffhanger. I’m not a fan of cliffys but the problem here is that I just didn’t care enough. I don’t have that sense of urgency to know what’s going to happen next that I should have from a cliffy. I think that was the final sign that this is not the series for me and that I won’t be continuing. This author does have some interesting ideas, and hopefully other readers will enjoy this more than I did.