Supernatural: The Unholy Cause - Joe Shreiber

And now everyone knows I am a fan of Supernatural. No bad thing, the TV show is well worth a watch and after my last couple of reads I felt it was time for something cheap and easy.

This book is both of those, cheap and easy, I read it in a matter of days and have to admit I was most pleased with it. The author has caught the two characters perfectly. Dean says some very Deanish lines and Sam is his usual moaning self. Castiel is about as deadpan as he is in the show and the three characters manage to work together to save a small Southern American town from disaster while also averting the Apocalypse. Who could ask for more than that?

The pacing of the novel is brilliant as well. The ending has me flicking the buttons on the Kindle as fast as I could. I was even reading while lounging on the sofa - a rarity for me - it had gripped me that much! The language used in the book is good, yet not too complicated and has some decent similes as well. In fact, this book as so many similes in it, they become a bit grating towards the end. However, this is my only complaint about the book and it's a minor one at that!

I'd recommend this book for Supernatural fans without hesitation but if you don't know what the show is about, your just going to get confused so it won't be worth your time.

Avengers Angel: Lost Angels: Book One, Heather Killough-Walden

I’d like to say I enjoyed this book, but I’d be stretching the truth a bit. 

The first major disappointment for me was discovering that this was actually a vampire novel in disguise. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the odd novel about vampires but I like to know what I’m getting myself into. When I chose this book it was because I thought it was a supernatural novel about angels, not vampires. Vampires are alluded to from the start of this novel and one of the four angels is in fact a vampire, another is a movie star playing a vampire and ends up becoming one as well. I understand why Azrael, Angel of Death, would fall to earth as a vampire but it seemed a bit contrived making Uriel, who’s name mean Light of God; he is associated with the sun, a vampire. It came across as ridiculous. To then have the Angel of the Christian God compare the taste of something to ambrosia, nectar of the Roman Gods, was just uncomfortable.

 

Don’t get me wrong, this book had some very good ideas running through it, love, loyalty and brotherhood, even the Fallen Angel ended up helping the Archangels in the end but it was so poorly executed it was just difficult to enjoy. The language was heavy handed, some of the metaphors so glaringly obvious I felt like I was being smacked in the face with them. Not something I enjoy, figuratively or literally if I’m honest. Take Gabriel for instance, Killough-Walden has given him a Scottish accent, brilliant! However writing in the accent itself should be left to Irving Welsh, it makes it tricky to read and is jolting for the reader. 

The use of supernatural abilities is referred to throughout the novel, as you would expect from a book in this genre, however to refer to them as ‘Vampire Powers’ or just ‘Powers’ didn’t sit well with me. It came across as a cop-out, our language is diverse and beautiful, to use this basic term seemed weak to me. In the end, the powers were pretty much useless so what was the point in having them in the first place?

That said, there are some positive points to this novel, the part where the two protagonists are spending time together, particularly the bit where they are flying is written well and enjoyable to read.

All in all though, I don’t think I will be reading the sequel!