Archangel's Sun (The Guild Hunter, #13)

by Nalini Singh

[EBookObsessed]

The Hummingbird is no longer "broken" and she is feisty. We are going to need to change her nickname.

We have met Illium's mom several times of the past 12 books in this series. The Hummingbird was a fragile, broken woman that everyone treated with deference and respect because her art was so beautiful.   Two things turned Sharine into a fragile women.  The first is that her parents decided to sleep when she was only 80 years old and abandoned her at what would be the equivalent of a human abandoning their 12 year old to raise themselves.  Then Sharine's first love, Raan, simply died in the middle of the night.  Angels don't just die.  Remember, these are creatures that can be beheaded and they're like "No, no, it's not a problem.  Leave him.  He'll be fine in a few hundred years."  So for Sharine to wake up and find Raan dead was frightening, especially since she was still rather young.   But it was Aegaeon's cruelty that finally shattered her, but even shattered, she took care of young Illium and Aohdan and raised them to the men they are today.  So she was never completely broken.

But Sharine has started to reclaim herself after being given the task of caretaker for the city of Lumia and their great art treasures.   Lumia is one of the few places on the planet  that survived unscathed by Lijuan's and Charisemnon's attacks.   All of the Archangels who survived Lijuan's attack on New York are exhausting themselves trying to deal with the aftermath of Lijuan's reborn and the destruction of their lands.   So Raphael comes to Sharine and asks her to travel to Southern portion of Africa to help Titus.  The war against Lijuan is over but Titus is still losing humans and vampires in his territory.  Charisemnon used his cascade given gift and enhanced Lijuan's reborn so they are smarter and more dangerous.  Titus and his people have been trying to destroy the nests of reborn without being caught in their ambushes.

Titus has asked for help in his territory and although he knows that the other archangels are very busy with their own territories, he is not excited to find that Raphael is sending The Hummingbird to his court.  He doesn't have time to rest, let alone try to entertain the fragile angel but he knows he cannot be rude to her since she is a treasure to angelkind.   Titus  has prepared himself and his household as best he can for the Hummingbird's arrival but he is flustered when she arrives in comfortable clothes more for a warrior than the flowy robes of delicate lady.  She actually has the archangel of Africa quite flustered for most of the story.  As Sharine works with Titus to locate the hiding reborn, she rediscovers more and more of herself and the powers she has inside that she has long let atrophy.

While I try to avoid other reviews before I write my own so not to be influenced, I did catch a couple of comments which I found entertaining which were basically discussion of Sharine being Illium's mom and they weren't excited about the old lady getting a romance.   When we get into stories where the characters are literally ageless,  we have to remember it is not just the main characters like Raphael and Illium who will appear in their mid- to late twenties.   If we were casting this series for a movie, neither Sharine nor Caliane would be cast by older actresses.  They would physically look as young as siblings to their grown sons.  It is also possible for Sharine and Titus to have a baby of their own before we even get a romance for Illium since, again, they are ageless.  My favorite example of this agelessness was in Jessie Lane's Big Bad Bite series, where one of the men is checking out the hot redhead in the miniskirt and makes a comment to his friend about how hot she is, and his friend's response is a very angry,  "Hey, that's my Babuska!"  In a fantasy series like this when everyone stays young and sexy, MILF takes on a whole new meaning.

I loved Titus with the loud booming voice.  He just isn't a character that can fade into the background.  I also loved watching Sharine reinvent herself from the woman we have know through the prior 12 books.   And when we finally get a showdown between Sharine and Aegaeon, it is perfect for the strong woman she is becoming.

Received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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