URBAN FANTASY REVIEW: Black Wings - Christina Henry

Release Date: 07/12/10

BOOK BLURB:

Escorting souls into the afterlife leaves Maddy little time for socialising - until devilishly handsome Gabriel Angeloscuro agrees to rent the empty apartment in her building. But when demons start appearing on Maddy's front lawn, she realises there's more to her new tenant than meets the eye.


REVIEW:

I always love the opportunity to try and new author, so when Christina’s title flitted across my vision I just had to give it a go. Death, as they say is a certainty, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before the embodiment took over the Urban Fantasy genre to such a degree that they’d give the vamps, Were’s and witches as serious run for their money. Not that it’s a bad thing but with so many titles featuring the reaper in all sort of incarnations each author has had to do something different to avoid being compared to the ones that have gone before.

Here in this title, Death takes the form of human agents with the blood of angels who take over the roll of certain fallen angels aiding humanity to pass onto the other side and whatever fate has in store. It’s clever, the characters are cracking and to be honest the way that the story is woven really will lend the title up to multiple follow ups. Whilst many will concentrate on the romance of the characters within, the real star of the show for me, was a minor character, Beezle the Gargoyle. He’s definitely the star and whilst many could end up wondering why, any author who lavishes that much time and love into a supporting cast member has taken a lot of care to create the other players.

All in, beautifully creative with some great prose, a serious sense of style alongside some cleverly built devices and dialogue. A great title to kick off a writing career and I wonder how much further Christina will be able to go. The only question is how much more complex is our heroines life going to get with the twists that have been left open to be resolved? I guess we’ll have to wait to find out.