I Read Books: Dreams Of Gods And Monsters

 

Dreams Of Gods And Monsters

At the end of Days Of Blood And Starlight, Jael, usurping emperor of the Seraphim, enters our world with a thousand winged seraphs dressed in white and holding harps. They’re seeking to get advanced weapons to finish conquering Eretz.

Our protagonists, now with a rag-tag band of Chimerae, the part-human part-animal inhabitants, are uneasily forced together with the Misbegotten, the seraph legion made up of the illegitimate children of the former emperor (killed in the climax of Days Of Blood And Starlight). They are too few to force a victory, and black-clad angels and beast-headed monsters attacking the Seraphs posing as the host of heaven isn’t going to help.

The majority of the book takes place over a short period of time, yet packs in a lot more than the earlier ones. For example there’s Eliza, who escaped an angel-cult and now with the return of angels is drawn into it, her position as an anthropologist bringing her into a human investigation. Akiva, now leader of the Misbegotten, had a Stellian mother, and that Seraph nation hides magic and secrets that will make an appearance. And Karou’s human friends find themselves caught up in intrigue, and also performing miracles of their own.

In her afterword Taylor notes the slightly awkward structure, with the majority of the story being one narrative, only to have the rug pulled out with an over-stuffed ending. And this reflects the slightly awkward multi-chapter flashback in the first volume of the series. To an extent it’s these very awkwardnesses, these refusals to conform to an expected style, that lift this angel romance trilogy into it’s own, more interesting, self.

Read This: A satisfying if rather packed finale to the series
Don’t Read This: There’s a lot of somewhat extended and distracting working out of threads from previous books