Review: 18+Mature  Read, but I Love the Messages :)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 16, 2014
*Warning: May contain spoilers* *Not to be read if under 18*This is book 2 in the “Archangel’s Creed" series, and Dorn is the 2nd Archangel to be sent to Earth to create a triumvirate: an Archangel with his human couple (one of them needing redemption), or thanks to Kassern's "indiscretion in marrying", i.e. miscalculating that he'd inherit human traits while his couple inherits traits of angels, a quadumverate. Thanks to Kassern now Dorn and all of the other Archangels must also marry as to not upset the balance.As if Dorn isn't already disgusted by this, the Annoyingly Perfect and Logical Archangel fails to admit he'd made a mistakes in his choosing of his triumvirate. He was, after all, a soldier in the Nine Universes. Hello Mr. Pride, one of the seven deadly sins...He's kind of a blockhead. He can't figure out that things just aren't how they were 100,000 years ago. I'll admit Dorn annoyed me with his pretentiousness until the very end where he started to admit he isn't perfect. Is it a coincidence his name is Dorn, the German word for Thorn?Mistake #1: choosing the ego-maniacal Leo, a serial rapist (ugh! OK well, that IS someone in need of redemption...) with parent issues. Yeah, I know "paging Dr. Freud", but if you look into the past of someone like Leo what you'll most likely find is someone with mommy and/or daddy issues. He watched his mother do nothing when he suffered various types of abuse at his father's hands. He grew up resenting her, and thinks all women are weak and undeserving of pleasure. Dorn sends Leo warnings to leave Jesse alone, but damn that free will, Leo doesn't listen. So after suffering an intervened massive brain hemorrhage via Dorn, he is in the hospital in a vegetative state. Oh how I wish we could really punish sex offenders like this... The hospital is where Jesse, Dorn's chosen female in the triumvirate and almost victim of Leo, meets Leo's half brother Lucien (Love that name!).Lucien grew up in Romania, the "love child" of his mother and his and Leo's father. He comes to the US after his mother's death as a teen and is the 180 of Leo. While his mother suffered similar occurrences, Lucien is respectful, shy and deems himself less than deserving of a woman's love, as opposed to the other way around. Jesse deals with her own doubts on what to do and how to feel. This is how we treat victims of (potential)rape in our society: we blame the victim. It's not enough that Jesse also has to endure her sister Sallie's passive aggressiveness regarding their childhood and pseudo perfection of being 90% on her way to being a nun.Here we have 2 sets of siblings. Within each set each brother/sister experiences something similar and deals with it in different ways. The point being that while you might be a product or victim of your surroundings and of society temporarily, you can choose whether or not to be a victim of it forever.Upon Dorn's arrival he now tells Jesse and Lucien their union will help him fully enter the mortal plane. Lucien is hesitant at first. Asked if that's moral, since what Dorn wants goes against the church's stance against premarital sex his response is that the wedding is for the man. Ceremonies were to show everyone that a specific woman had been claimed. In modern terms 'off the market'. I did say he's kind of a blockhead, but think about that. Where do you think the giving away of the bride or the woman taking the guy's last name comes from? It's 2014: how many women STILL change their last names? Right. But I digress...After Dorn's quadumvirate is finally formed the transference of his of angelic powers to the humans and vice verse has Dorn's pride hurt. He, just like Kassern had, experiences things that are foreign albeit unwanted of him.Sallie who is now at the nunnery soon finds out that the so called nuns and the convent in which she is supposed to live are anything but Holy. The convent is not consecrated ground and is run by a Demon Over Lord and the nuns are-you guessed it-demonic creatures in disguise. Wolf in sheep's clothing anyone? Reminds me of a quote I saw recently: "Be careful who you trust-the Devil was once an angel..."To complicate matters, Sallie is Dorn's chosen bride. This going to end well for the demon running that show? Probably not ;)When finally done with the convent battle, Dorn must get Sallie to a consecrated ground to heal her but as part of Dorn's triumvirate Lucien is a key player. For most of the book he wasn't very useful, mainly because he saw himself as useless. He carries years of guilt from his childhood. Dorn tells him as a child he could not help his mother and now it's time to let it go. There's a saying Christians have. That is "lay your burdens down". It basically means put it in God's hands, because it's out of your human control. Lucien asks himself and Dorn why he should help God. "To save the world?" asks Lucien. "Yes, because you mean the world to God" responds Dorn.Why, Lucien asks, would a good God allow those kinds of horrible things to happen to his mother. Don't we do that? Don't we ask how a benevolent and "just" God can simply allow horrible things to happen? Our human minds can't understand it. Perhaps we're not meant to? Or perhaps it's to bring us closer together rather than apart like what we've been going through century after century...Lucien's tears bring everyone (Kassern and his triumverate and Dorn with his) together and Dorn tells Lucien that he, in fact, is the chosen one-not Leo. It is not due to Dorn's mistake or in Leo's stead, but because everything happens for a reason.While Lucien used to have obligatory sex to make his brother happy, he now finds his own wife worthwhile. Let me touch on that for a second. Let me mention how sexist it is toward men that society treats them like they SHOULD behave a certain way (yeah, that behavior thing isn't limited to women). One brother did it out of revenge; one did it for acceptance. Same action-2 different reasons. There's that choice thing again.Near the end we get introduced to the next angel to fall, Toren. His adopted pet-which they all seem to have yet it was never mentioned in Summon Kassern- seems to want to nurture the demon offspring of several kidnapped women. When asked why not kill the offspring since they're inherently evil Toren reminds his bother Archangels that humans are also inherently evil. And inherently good. It's what you DO that makes you one or the other. Sex, a gun, money, even a car can be used for good or evil. It's the choices you make that makes those things good or evil. Sensing that choice/free will theme yet?I like that while the Archangels are fighting so are their triumvirates. The women are also fighters and no one is simply there just for the sake of being there...Men have different ideas of perfect, and Dorn sees Sallie perfectly made for him. We are all made for someone. That's the idea. Says the Archangel Uriel, the head hancho/ dispatching Archangel "The Father has put Sempiternitas power is in all humans perhaps?" Yeah I had to look up the word, too. Translated to English it means going on and on without any interruptions. Example: the perpetual rise and fall of the sea. I.e. John Milton's "no man is an island". In other words, swallow your pride. While you may have choices, watch them because they have consequences and we're all in this together.