Dark Admirer by Charlotte Featherstone

Dark Admirer

The Watchers #2

Charlotte Featherstone

Contemporary/Paranormal/Erotica

Published in 2008

H/h - Anael, the Fallen Angel/Eve Parker

Setting: Canada, 21st century.

Read in June, 2011

My rating:

                                                                                 [spoiler alert]

This book, like Fallen Angels: Dark Awakening, was interesting but short. Though I got to know about the characters enough to form opinions about them, the book ended in a rather disappointing/negative note. That’s why I’ve decided on 3 stars. There are other reasons as well; I’ll try to explain myself in my review.

Anael is the angel of pleasure. He’s fallen all right and it’s because, even though he’s an angel, he’d given into the seven cardinal sins. His grievous mistakes were lust and vanity (as far as I understood). So, Sariel, God’s messenger punished him for 70 generations in the Abyss to be tortured by the Incubi and the Succubi, with his eyes sewn shut with wires. And, torture him they did! God, I hated reading what happened to him. The narrative wasn’t very detailed but it was gut churning nonetheless. He was tortured, raped and was forced to do all sorts of unspeakable things with those demons. Then, when he was released on terms, his face was scarred with angelic script, depicting all the sins he’s done and his body, narrating the things he’d done in the Abyss. Then he was asked that if he gives an amount of God’s children aka humans what they sought for; love and desire, mostly a long standing relationship, a part of his curse would be lifted. In the meantime, he can’t indulge in any of the sins he’s accused of. On the New Year’s Eve, another human, a male calls out to him. Even though he hates it with all his being, for one last time Anael plunges into the Earth to help him out.

Eve owns a bookstore and works in it herself. It’s rather a big store and from the description of it, I understand it’s been running very successfully since the opening. Eve is kinda shy, because of her plumpish physical appearance. She also loves books. Her love life is a mess (read: Pinky is her best friend! :/). Eve moved in this place not too long ago and still settling down with her friend Gemma’s help. On the day of the New Year’s Eve, she’s on the phone with Gemma, who’s asking Eve to come to her house and spend it with a date she’d wants Eve to hook up with. The weather is very bad, with snow storms coming up, so Eve tells her friend that she’d close up the store and be on her way. In the meantime, something hits her front window and on a closer inspection, she sees it’s a huge black feather. She’s very drawn to it and brings it inside. Eve’s thinking God knows to what kinda bird this huge feather belongs to and while thinking it, she starts touching it and then, feels this electric going through her hands and body. She starts touching herself with it. Then, her dog Lizzy starts acting strangely and pointing towards the back door. Eve goes out to see what’s wrong and sees this tall and big man, lying amongst the snow face down, like he’s fallen from above this way. She tries to wake him up, thinking all sorts of bad things and when she tries to leave him, he grabs her ankle. Eve looks at him, his beautiful eyes and then, his face. She gets scared seeing the tattoos. When the man stands up, Eve sees wings in his shadow and thinks she’s going crazy. She finally faints.

Anael fell here because of the touch he felt on his body, like a lover’s caress. Then he sees the woman and carries her inside. Anael is mesmerized by her and thinks of seeing her naked, he almost does but Sariel’s voice comes back to haunt him. Anael can’t speak, a part of his curse, unless it’s with the human he’s helping. Eve becomes conscious and finds him sitting there holding her. She tries to talk to him, he doesn’t speak but in her mind, she keeps hearing a very beautiful voice talking to her. She again thinks she’s going insane because somehow she knew it’s a voice she’d heard before in her dreams and that this voice belongs to this stranger. She offers him food and eats together. Anael doesn’t need to eat or drink but he does anyway since this human is the first of her kind to give her any gift. And, the attraction he’s feeling, he knows it’s different than the kind of sex he’d so far had. He’s very skillful no doubt, he’s work is to help the humans love and recreate but for himself, it’s forbidden. He knows Eve feels things for him too. Then, an exhausted Eve falls asleep and Anael holds her through the night.

In the morning, Eve finds out he’s gone but somehow she knows he’s watching her. She’s still confused about who or what that man was. She finds an origami of wings in the store. Opening it, she sees its a note from him. She’d leave out food for him everyday thinking he must be some homeless guy, to find the tray empty later on, with an origami of wings on it. But, on incidents, she keeps on feeling him and seeing him in her dreams. On a book club night in her apartments, she talks to her friends about her fantasy (something I didn’t really care for!), knowing he was listening to her. She saw a shadow on the window ledge. Then at night, she dreams again and this time she knows it’s him touching her. Anael tells him his name, coming to her as a shadow. He knows what he’s doing is going to cost him another eternity in the Abyss but he can’t stay away from Eve. I loved this love scene, specially when after deciding that he’s going to risk it all, Anael materializes in his human form from the shadows on top of Eve, I had goose bumps! Some lucky chit she is! Anyway, in the morning, he isn’t there so Eve keeps thinking is it real or just a heavy duty erotic dream.

Anael keeps an eye on her always and he also meets the man who called him, a man he despises. Sariel and Sammael visit him to let him know what he’s doing won’t do any good. Sariel taunts him again about his punishment. Sammael is not like Sariel, so he tries to reason with Anael. Then, Anael gets to know that the man he’s here to help is supposed to be intended for Eve, the date Gemma asked her to meet on the New Year’s Eve. That man is out to claim Eve’s fortune and I was confused as to why would she open a bookstore and run it herself if she’s an heiress?! He doesn’t care for her, which leaves Anael angry and determined that whatever happens, he’ll save Eve. Even when Gadriel, along with Sariel and Sammael, try to talk him out of it, Anael won’t listen to them. He doesn’t care what happens to him anymore since he knows he’s already fallen in love with her.

Eve also knew she’s falling in love with her dark admirer. She meets her date, that guy and I didn’t like what followed next. Anael was there, watching her and that man. Eve was wearing a dress, spilling out of it since her friend Gemma told her to flaunt her ‘goods’. Gotta tell you, I wasn’t much impressed with Eve and her non-existent personality. After reading this, I lost all hope about her! And, she and Anael made love, in that bar, in front of that man and all the people there. It was the fantasy Eve talked to her book club friends (didn’t care for any of them either) about. Anael freezes the mortals but I’m not sure if they were watching them or just froze in time. I got the impression that they were still watching and I was like WTF?! That wasn’t my cuppa tea for sure. :/

Later that night, while Eve sleeps, the Devil pays Anael a visit and he makes a bargain with him; in return he’ll get back his voice, his face and a lifetime with Eve. I had questions about that bargain as well as unhappy about it. I wasn’t even sure if they were in love or in lust. So, even though I felt for Anael, had hots for him (man, he’s a dirty talker! ;) ) and loved the hot love scenes (minus the last one), I was disappointed in the end.

PS: I actually thought this book is going to be about Sammael and Mary, as they were lovers in Fallen Angels: Dark Awakening. After reading more about him in this book, I got really interested in Sammael. So, would there be a book for him?

*Update*

A few months ago, I had an opportunity to ask Ms. Featherstone about more angel novels, especially if there'd be any more in this series. In her answer, she said she is very interested to write more angel novels and continue with this series but at the moment, she's working with other projects so no plans for them. As a matter of fact, she planned a book for Sammael but because of new contracts and projects, she couldn't continue. Well, I can only hope someday we get to read more angel novels from her. :)