Hello everyone!
Tonight, we're taking a look at a book that's getting its second release day just next week!
Yep, you read that right.
The books, The Fallen Bloodline and The Old Serpent, have previously been published separately, but the author went back and tidied the texts up, polished them a little bit (they truly didn't need much, I can promise you), and is now re-releasing them under one single title.
It's an omnibus edition and she's currently hard at work writing the third - and I think final - book in this series!
Honestly, I'm of a mind it can't come soon enough, though of course, OF COURSE it's at the author's discretion naturally.
But the story is just so good I can't wait to see what comes next!
So without further ado: The Fallen Bloodline Omnibus.
Now, if you've read Heart of Faelithia but didn't read these before, you may be familiar with the character Dora.
Dora is the person our human-turned-Fae-princess goes to when it looks like Baal, the pesky demon lord who seems to be up there in powers, or close to God in any event, is about to ascend somehow and make himself HIGHER than God.
I mean, talk about DEFCON-1 in terms of alarms!
But the story in this book, in itself, is Dora's, and it goes a little like this:
she starts feeling like the world is too much, the people too loud, everything is just too EVERYTHING, and then she sees this beautiful woman who's apparently her guardian angel, though Dora's never known she has one anyway.
She does.
This is moot point because her biological father, Ethan, suddenly crops up, telling her he's a fallen angel, and that if she accepts her Nephilim powers, then she'll become immortal, among other things.
Dora, feeling like this might finally be where she belongs, accepts, and enters a rather supernatural world wherein demons prey on people's souls, Nephilim lock their souls inside their own bodies and are thus immune to soul-stealing, and other beings and denizens are just trying to make a living.
So is Ezra, Ethan's best friend, who's dating a demoness, Marve currently.
Dora doesn't quite trust Ezra, since Ezra treats her like she's a gnat he'd love to crush, but she does start training with the lot since she wants to rid the world of demos, especially those actively soul-sucking.
All would probably have been well enough - minus the fact that Ethan explains nothing and doesn't like being questioned about anything, but tough luck my guy, HOW ELSE IS DORA SUPPOSED TO LEARN - if not that one of the higher demons is apparently out to get her. It takes the combined efforts of Ethan and Tubiel, another guardian angel, to take care of the threat, but the problem is bigger than that.
It comes home to roost: Marve's the one who sold Dora out, and so Ezra has to kill her.
Of course he then gets himself yanked away by another guardian angel, so the second book opens with Ethan and Dora frantically searching for him. Dora eventually succeeds by connecting with him, mind to mind, after which she's like: oh by the way, since I'm pregnant, I want to make my baby immortal, and the only way to do it is to find Baal.
Sure, say the guys, let's go find the dude who can quite literally deal more damage than all the demons put together.
It's a little insane how easily they go along with it, but I mean, story purposes I suppose? LOL
Tubiel also tags along, because he has feelings for Dora (does it matter she's supposedly got a mortal boyfriend? Not to him it doesn't!), and because he's the guardian angel to her unborn baby's soul, so, he'll be guarding her until said baby's born.
They go on a quest, and end up doing multiple side quests along the way. To find Baal, they have to find Jezebel, his lover, and to find her they need an item of hers, so they have to steal a bracelet out of a vampire's lair, where he resides with his junkies whom he feeds off of.
Dora manages that one, though not without psychological consequences, as you'll see. She also has a run-in with werewolves where she saves one of them, forces a witch to do her bidding, and ends up the wolves' prisoner because they don't trust her. The guy she saved later leaves her a cryptic message about a vampire even more powerful than the one she stole the bracelet from, but she's like yeah, I'll pass for now, peace out.
She's got plenty on her hands anyway trying to keep her mortal boyfriend unaware of everything else, and chasing down Jezebel in old Babylon, where they eventually do get through the enchantment that reveals the old city is still alive, beautiful and bustling, just with demon activity this time.
Jezebel wants help freeing her son's soul from a statuette, so this is where Dora goes to yet another witch, even if this one is much nicer, and she meets another Nephilim, one who turned down her powers and immortality and now her dad wants to kill her. You'll see why in a minute.
Because once the spell seal is broken and Jezebel in fact takes our group to Baal, it's revealed that Dora's boyfriend is ACTUALLY the dude who killed Cain and was cursed with immortality, to wander forever; Ethan took out a blood vow with Baal and either Dora kills him, and gains his powers, or Baal takes them when he seizes his life force; Jezebel was playing them all along and there's a wraith inside the statuette, not her son; and this whole story goes back, way back, to when Adam and Lilith, not Adam and Eve, were around.
And oh by the way, Baal is the Serpent. Just so you know.
Dora kills Ethan so he doesn't get sucked into Baal's vortex of whatever he's cooking (and this is why the other Nephilim is hiding, because the only thing that can kill a fallen angel is oak imbued with the blood of their child), but when she absorbs what's left of him, she realizes she's no longer pregnant, therefore Tubiel can't be by her side anymore.
And of course, Ezra and she now know Baal's cooking up something much, MUCH more sinister, and Dora vows to stop him at all cost, while also being ridiculously mad at her boyfriend for never letting her know he's known everything all along.
She packs up, and the other Nephilim and her guardian angel tag along, to maybe make Ezra's house into a refuge for those who desperately need it, and to figure out how to beat Baal before he decides to make the world his playground.
I put everything in over simplified terms, but the book itself, even at 600 pages long, is BEAUTIFUL to read. It's wonderful. Dora is beautifully human even once she accepts her immortality, flawed, emotional, and impatient. She is also determined, loyal, just, and wants to do right in the world.
Ethan is a figure I never thought I'd miss but I already do, and for Ezra I'm hoping we get to know him on a deeper level in book 3.
The supporting cast of Nazanin, Ben, Jezebel and even Baal are woven seamlessly into the tapestry and bring this rich world to life.
The author's writing is engaging and really immerses you into the story; it only took me 2 days to read the hefty thing!
Ethan is a figure I never thought I'd miss but I already do, and for Ezra I'm hoping we get to know him on a deeper level in book 3.
The supporting cast of Nazanin, Ben, Jezebel and even Baal are woven seamlessly into the tapestry and bring this rich world to life.
The author's writing is engaging and really immerses you into the story; it only took me 2 days to read the hefty thing!
Plus I have SO many more questions. What are the Nephilim in this world? How do guardian angels function within it? How do fallen angels fall? And of course, the other different factions, witches, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, demons, wraiths, etc.
Come prepared by brushing up on Biblical knowledge since there WILL be talk of God, Eden, Babylon, and all that fun stuff of old Biblical stories, and I think you'll benefit from a crash course.
All in all, highly recommend, and I cannot WAIT for book 3!
Come prepared by brushing up on Biblical knowledge since there WILL be talk of God, Eden, Babylon, and all that fun stuff of old Biblical stories, and I think you'll benefit from a crash course.
All in all, highly recommend, and I cannot WAIT for book 3!
xx
*image not mine
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