Tracy’s review of Messenger’s Angel (Lost Angels #2) by Heather Killough-Walden

Since the beginning of time, the archangels have longed to know true love.

When four female angels were created for the four archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Azrael, a chaos spurred by jealousy erupted, and the archesses were secreted away to Earth. The four favored archangels followed, prompting a search that has lasted millennia…

For hundreds of years, Gabriel has passed himself off as a common Scottish villager. Few know he is the Messenger, a powerful archangel who has secretly scoured the world for the only woman who can complete him. Now, he’s shocked to discover the object of his desire in his own backyard.

Researching her Ph.D. in the Outer Hebrides, Juliette Anderson has always been the rational type—until she looks across a quaint pub into the silver eyes of a stranger. He’s handsome. He’s intense. And he claims her with a searing kiss on the spot.

Every instinct tells her to run. But when a dark force rises, and the truth of her identity is revealed, she must put her faith in the mysterious man who enflames her.

Juliette is researching her Ph.D. and is traveling extensively. She discovers, quite by accident, when she’s in Australia that she has some weird healing ability. Right when she gets home she is contacted by a media mogul who wants her research to intersect with a show he wants to put on. With money as no object she heads to Scotland to do her research. From moment one things start to go wrong and life gets crazy.

Juliette figures out not long after she’s in Scotland that not only can she heal people but she can move objects with her mind – oh, and control the weather. She is basically accosted and kissed at a hotel by a beautiful man but runs from him before she can figure out what his name was or why the hell he was kissing her. Juliette eventually finds out that the man who kissed her is Gabriel, the archangel, and she was specifically made to be his mate. There are others after her who are also angels (Adarians) who are bad and want to kill her to take her powers. Then there’s the media mogul, Samuel Lambent, who is also an angel but Gabriel and his brothers, Uriel, Azrael and Michael, have no idea what that guy is up to. He seems evil but yet in the last battle (of the last book) he actually stepped in and helped.

Our lovely arches, Juliette, has a hard time taking it all in but eventually believes – this after having her luggage stolen, being attacked by an Adarian, being scared of Gabriel and running from him, being physically ripped out of an elevator. Not much to go through, right? Now all Gabriel and his brothers need to do is keep Juliette as well as Ellie (Uriel’s archess) safe and then get on with their lives. Apparently easier said than done.

This story started off a bit slow for me but I wanted to see what happened next. While I was reading the story I got a little wrapped up in it and didn’t really take the time to think all of the details through. After I finished the book, however, and thought about it I couldn’t help but think how over the top it all was. Not only in some of the writing and prose but in the story line as well. Juliette was a smart woman but frankly she came off as as not real smart at times. For someone who was supposedly brilliant she sometimes had a hard time putting two and two together. She was very kind-hearted so that was a bonus. Gabriel went all he-man Alpha-boy when he first saw Juliette and said some really thoughtless things that only scared Juliette from him (not mean, just thoughtless). He had a “revelation” about how he loved Juliette like a minute and a half after he met her and he knew absolutely nothing about her. Literally nothing. I can’t say I really liked Gabriel all that much but the couple kind of fit each other.

Then there was the part of the book dealing with Samuel who was actually Samael – also an archangel. What was he up to? Why was he wooing Juliette and trying to keep her away from Gabriel? I thought we’d find out but as the book went on his part in it became non-existent and it was a tad strange how that part of the story just fell away with no explanation.

Then of course we have the Adarians. These are archangels that were cast from the heavens (apparently that happens more often than we think) and are after the archesses because they have healing powers. While the Adarians have multiple powers – none of them can heal. The leader of the group is Kevin-the-Psycho. Ok, his earth name is Kevin, his real name is Abraxos and that man is one can short of a six pack. He is in love with Ellie (the archess from book 1) but wants to kill Juliette and drink her blood so he can not only take her power temporarily but have it for all time. He has started killing his own men – drinking their blood and stealing their powers for himself – which turned him in to a vampire of sorts, but later in the book is concerned that his groups numbers are dropping. Well yeah. I guess others aren’t supposed to kill members of his team – only him and a few of his chosen. *sigh*

This book had so much potential but really fell short of the finish line in my opinion. There was almost too much going on to get a good romance going. We know the couple is fated for each other and the archesses are understandably leery of the men, but there was so much opportunity to have expanded the romantic aspect of the book that it just didn’t take. Hopefully books from this series will have a more expanded romance that blends better with the fight/battle scenes.

Rating: 2 out of 5

The series:

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This book is available from Signet. You can buy it here or here in e-format.