Angel Bait by Tricia Skinner

Angel Assassins, Book 0.5

Synopsis: He’s not that kind of angel.

Jarrid is a “Bound One”: half angel, half human, trained from childhood to enforce Heaven’s laws on earth. An assassin with no remorse. And no choice. When he discovers an ancient ritual called Ascension, which might give him a shot at freedom, he can’t resist his lifelong dream. He only needs to find one last Renegade angel and take him down…using a certain woman to flush the angel out of hiding.

She’s not what he’s expecting.

News reporter Ionie Gifford has no clue an outlaw angel wants her dead, much less why, but she does know one thing: the enigmatic Jarrid, with his penetrating silver eyes and his worship-worthy body, is her ticket to the city’s supernatural underworld, where she might finally be able to locate her mother’s killer. For that kind of information, she’s willing to risk everything…

They can’t be together — but can’t keep apart…

Blindsided by Ionie’s beauty and tenacity, Jarrid finds the millennia-old glacier around his heart melting. But when he’s faced with a choice, will he sacrifice Ionie for freedom from his brutal servitude—or agree to be bound for eternity, to protect the life of the woman he’s falling in love with?

Review: I was very curious to read Angel Bait, prequel to the Angel Assassins series whose first book (Angel Kin) I read few months ago and very much enjoyed. It wasn’t exactly was I was expecting though. I thought Angel Bait would be more about the origins of The Bound Ones (the nephilim brotherhood that Jarrid is a member of), how their leader, Tanis, rescued all these nephils, and why angels consider them as “abominations”. Because isn’t it what prequels are usually about, giving some extra info about a series’ background? For me Angel Bait shouldn’t be called “prequel to the Angel Assassins series” but rather “book 1 of the Angel Assassins series”, since it develops the story of one of The Bound’s members, just like all the other books in the series do.

With that said, I still enjoyed my reading. In some way it reminded me of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R Ward, but with a better writing style (not hard), and less sex (not hard either). The vampires in Black Dagger Brotherhood and the nephils in The Bound Ones have the same sense of camaraderie, and that’s an aspect of J.R. Ward’s series I like so I was glad to find something similar here.

Angel Bait is a bit more focused on the romance than Angel Kin was, and that’s probably why I enjoyed it a bit less (I usually prefer action over romance). Especially since I didn’t have strong feelings neither for Jarrid nor for Ionie. To me the main characters fell a bit flat sadly. Jarrid is a super muscled, super sexy giant, and Ionie is a beautiful, curved Afro-American. That’s what I will remember of these protagonists. As you can see, these are only physical traits, nothing in their personality struck me. That’s a shame, because to me that’s the most important thing in a book character. Only Tanis made an impression, I hope he’ll get his own book in the future.

Also, Jarrid and Ionie are immediately pulled towards each other upon their first meeting. Instant attraction is something that always makes me roll my eyes when I encounter it in a book because it sounds so not credible to me.

Luckily the second half of the book leaves the romance a bit behind to catch up with the action part. As you can guess, I liked that part much more. I have already said that in my review of Angel Kin but I’m saying it again here because it is one of the things I like the most about this series: I really enjoy the mythology and the fact that angels, for once, aren’t the good guys.

I think the plot takes quite long to be set up, it took me a while to figure out why exactly Ionie was such a central element for both the Bound and the renegade, but when it’s finally started, it’s great! Fast-paced and with much action.

The author also draws a sort of parallel between half-breeds (like nephils) and biracial humans (like Afro-Americans). It isn’t developed much in-depth but I liked the idea nevertheless.

To conclude, I’d say that Angel Bait is a book every paranormal romance lover will enjoy. It doesn’t feature the best characters ever but it has a great plot, with much action and also quite a lot of romance. I really like this nephils brotherhood and I’m already looking forward to reading the other brothers’ stories.

 

I recommend this book to you if: you like paranormal romance

3-5

Tari

 

15 thoughts on “Angel Bait by Tricia Skinner

  1. Hm. I’m a romance girl at heart, so I actually think this one, being more romance-heavy, will work better for me than the one that has more action! What can I say, I’m a romantic:) The mythology of this series sound really interesting as well, and anything along the lines of the BDB is something I want try!

  2. I hate when books take forever to set up and get rolling. I honestly like my romance and action to be nicely blended. Some romance here, some action, then romance, and etc. Good review! Hope the rest of the series works out better for you!

  3. It’s disappointing to see that this doesn’t really bring anything new to the table with regards to the background story :/ Prequels really do usually serve to give more meat to the overall picture, and I don’t usually read them to read more romance, because god, we have more of that in the main storyline already 😛 But 3.5 isn’t that bad, at least you enjoyed it even if it was more romanc-y than action-y ^_^

    Faye at The Social Potato

  4. An assassin angel is a new one. I’m sorry you didn’t get the prequel answers you wanted. The friendships sound good. I prefer action over romance too. I don’t like books where the characters looks are emphasized and they have no personality. Yes, I feel the same way about instant attraction.

    • If you can, I’d avise you to read this one first. But it isn’t necessary, I started with Angel Kin and had no troubles understanding the story even if I hadn’t read the prequel beforehand.

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