Review: A Temptation of Angels By Michelle Zink

Even angels make mistakes in this page-turning epic romance. When her parents are murdered before her eyes, sixteen-year-old Helen Cartwright finds herself launched into an underground London where a mysterious organization called the Dictata controls the balance of good and evil. Helen learns that she is one of three remaining angelic descendants charged with protecting the world's past, present, and future. Unbeknownst to her, she has been trained her whole life to accept this responsibility. Now, as she finds herself torn between the angelic brothers protecting her and the devastatingly handsome childhood friend who wants to destroy her, she must prepare to be brave, to be hunted, and above all to be strong, because temptation will be hard to resist, even for an angel. Michelle Zink masterfully weaves historical fantasy with paranormal romance to create a gripping tale of love and betrayal.

When Helen Cartwright is awaken in the middle of the night my her mother and forced to hide in a secret room without no explaination, she all but panics.  When she realizes that her house is burning down and that her parents are probably dead she is forced to find her way through an underground tunnel and take refuge at with  Darius and Griffin Channing, two brothers that, with her, are the last of the keepers of the world.  As she learns about Dictata and her role in it, she also learns the cruel truth about her parents death and who had ordered it.  The balance of good, evil, and the order of all things sits in the hands of Helen, Darius, and Griffin.  A Temptations of Angels is an exciting new take on angels based around one hundred to one hundred fifty years ago in London.  The books is full of new love, friendship, magic, betrayal, and action that will keep you turning the pages.

I really like that the book was based at an earlier time period than the present.  Sometimes it’s a nice change to go to another era in a book besides the present that so many new books today are based in.  In this book you really get a feel for how people that were more well off did things and what they thought was or wasn’t proper.  I also like that now matter then century Helen is still a young adult and young adults will be just that, proper or not.

I really liked Darius’ character because you really get to see him open up.  Griffin was just automatically him and open and friendly from the get go but Darius is very much the onion of the two.  He starts off cold and mean but then you find is soft spot in a girl with bad health and then you find that he slowly, if given time and if it is earned, will respect and care for Helen like a sister.  Throughout almost the whole book you think that he is this hard, scared of nothing bad ass but then you find something that he is scared of and his character does a flip flop for a second and then he’s back to his brave bad self.  He is very much a roller coaster to follow.

The other character I really like is Raum.  He is the broken boy of this book.  He has done horrible things but when you find his reasoning you almost wonder if what he is doing is really all that bad if it’ll all be erased anyways.  He has conflicted interest between remembering being friends with Helen as children and needing to harm her now.  I don’t want to say too much but it’s very interesting how it all plays out.

Have you guys read any good books this summer?  Any angel books? Suggestions? Let us know!