Nocturnal Book Reviews

3.5/5
Egalley thanks to Egmont USA

I just had a huge rant in Russian about this book, so I'll try to make this one as short as possible.

First of all, the book was pissing me off to no end until the main heroine grew herself a pair.
Sasha Annenkova is half-Russian, half-American and the amount of absurd details about Russia in this book was driving mad. Please, please, if you write a book without doing a good research, why not ask your fellow Russian to read it and point some obvious mishaps?
I'll spare them too you, because, honestly, what you don't know can't irritate you :)

Secondly, Sasha is my least favorite character. She is a victim. She cries a lot, she goes through unimaginable, unbelievable humiliation and does nothing. What the hell?! What kind of message is that?

Yes, she is Anabo. A true light, a soul that have an automatic ticket to Heaven. She doesn't get angry, enraged, jealous or hateful and she doesn't feel temptations. However, while not feeling is good, not doing something to stop what she is going through is really, really bad.

When Sasha and one of Mephisto's sons - Ajax - fall in love she starts acquiring some of his attributes, which make her strong and furious with Lost souls. She wants to fight injustice, she wants to fight back. Hallelujah!

That was the turning point for me. 3/4 along the way I started cheering for Sasha, and the book redeemed itself.

Now the good points. Trinity Faegen created a very interesting world very much like Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R.Ward but for young adult readers. Kudos to her for this!

Big, bad, leather-clad boys living in a mansion and fighting evil around the world and in their own souls? I'm sold.

Surprisingly, this is quite a dark YA, there is even underage sex, which made me raise my brows, because YA usually shies away from such topic.

So here it is. This is an undeniably interesting story with lots of potential. Despite my huge dislike for Sasha until later in the story I congratulate the author on a memorable debut. I do hope she stays away from Bella stereotype and gives us spitfire instead of a martyr later in the series.