Audiobook Review: A Terrible Fall of Angels by Laurell K. Hamilton

A Terrible Fall of Angels
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

Narrator: Holter Graham
Series: Zaniel Havelock (Book 1)
Publication: Berkley (August 17, 2021); Penguin Audio (August 17, 2021)

Length: 12 hours and 9 minutes

Description: Angels walk among us, but so do other unearthly beings in this brand new series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton.

Meet Detective Zaniel Havelock, a man with the special ability to communicate directly with angels. A former trained Angel speaker, he devoted his life to serving both the celestial beings and his fellow humans with his gift, but a terrible betrayal compelled him to leave that life behind. Now he’s a cop who is still working on the side of angels. But where there are angels, there are also demons. There’s no question that there’s evil at work when he’s called in to examine the murder scene of a college student—but is it just the evil that one human being can do to another, or is it something more? When demonic possession is a possibility, even angelic protection can only go so far. The race is on to stop a killer before he finds his next victim, as Zaniel is forced to confront his own very personal demons, and the past he never truly left behind.

The first in a new series from the author of the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series.

My Thoughts: Zaniel Havelock is a police detective who works in the magical crimes division. He's a former angel speaker. His current case takes him to the scene of a brutal rape/murder of a college coed. It is soon clear that the case is about a demon possession, but it is unclear at first whether the young man possessed was willing or unwilling. 

As Zaniel, called Havoc by his colleagues, investigates, he is also dealing with a failing marriage that he really does not want to fail. He wants to fix things up with his schoolteacher wife so that he can return to his home and three-year-old son. He's trying to fit marriage counseling into a life that is already full of this current case. 

I enjoyed meeting Zaniel and wandering in his world. His psychic gifts caused his parents to give him to the College of Angels at the age of seven for his education. He spent time there with his friends Levaniel and Siriel until Levaniel was thrown out of the organization when his mind broke from his interactions with angels. Then Zaniel left, joined the Army and then the police force. 

The world is one in which angels and other beings also live. The College of Angels is very much a Christian organization with a close relationship with angels. It disdains other creeds. Zaniel's life experiences and work colleagues show him that witches and shamans and their guardian spirits are also valid ways of interacting with the supernatural. 

The worldbuilding was intriguing.

I bought this one as a Kindle book March 17, 2026, and as an audiobook May 16, 2026. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Archangel's Eternity by Nalini Singh

Archangel's Eternity
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Guild Hunters (Book 18)
Publication: Berkley (May 5, 2026)

Description: Elena and Raphael return for the hauntingly poignant conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s genre-defining Guild Hunter series.

A thousand years.

It’s been a millennium since Elena’s fateful first meeting with Archangel Raphael. She has survived war and loss, experienced beauty and cruelty. But no matter what, she has always held on to her mortal heart, as she and Raphael have held on to each other. Passionate and vibrant, they’ve built a life that has stood the test of time, growing ever stronger with each turn of the sun.

But change is coming—of a magnitude they could have never imagined—and it will forever alter the trajectory of their existence.

Even as they grapple with the cataclysmic shift in their personal lives, the Cadre of Ten, which has maintained a hard-won peace for centuries, begins to simmer with dangerous fault lines. The specter of madness looms in one archangel, the promise of war burns between two others, and in darkness far from mortal and immortal eyes stirs an ancient, slumbering power.

Suddenly, the future is terrifyingly uncertain . . . at the very moment that Elena and her archangel need to protect a treasure infinitely more precious than eternity.

My Thoughts: This conclusion to an 18-book series is mainly a retrospective. Elena and Raphael are celebrating being together for 1000 years and looking back at some of the events that shaped them. Conditions are stable but changes are in the wind.

The biggest change is that Elena finds herself pregnant despite her birth control. This is a seismic event for the two of them. Raphael fears that he will go mad as his parents did and Elena fears that her hunter nature will make her so overprotective that she will stunt her child's growth. 

I enjoyed this story but doubt this would work at all for a new reader of the series. There were so many references, including the quotes that begin each chapter, to events and relationships from the earlier books that brought back memories for me but would likely baffle someone new to the series. 

I enjoyed the glimpses of the world and New York especially and thought the changes realistic. I also liked Harrison's role in the story which indicates that immortality is a very mixed blessing. Elena also feels the losses of family and friends over the many centuries. 

I enjoyed the return of a new and changed Legion. I thought for a while that this would be another episode filled with angels fighting each other but liked the way Raphael's mother managed to sooth the tensions between Illium and his archangel father. 

This story was a satisfying conclusion to the series. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Archangel's Lineage by Nalini Singh

Archangel's Lineage
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Guild Hunter (Book 16)
Publication: Berkley (April 23, 2024)

Description: New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s dangerous and beautiful world of archangels, vampires, and mortals has never faced a threat this cataclysmic…

Raphael and Elena are experiencing their first ever year of true peace. No war. No horrors of archangelic power. No nightmares given flesh. Until…the earth beneath the Refuge begins to tremble, endangering not only angelkind’s precious and fragile young, but the very place that has held their most innocent safe for eons.

Amid the chaos, Elena’s father suffers a violent heart attack that threatens to extinguish their last chance to heal the bonds between them and make sense of the ruins of their agonizing shared history.

Even as Elena battles grief, Raphael is torn from her side by the sudden disappearance of an archangel. But worse yet is to come. An Ancestor, an angel unlike any other, stirs from his Sleep to warn the Cadre of a darkness so terrible that it causes empires to fall and civilizations to vanish.

This time, even the Cadre itself may not be able to stop a ticking clock that is counting down at frightening speed…

My Thoughts: Raphael and Elena are experiencing their first year of peace after years of horrors. However, the earth beneath the Refuge is starting to suffer from earthquakes and the Mantle which protects if from being seen by humans is fading. 

As the quakes get more pervasive and more world-wide, none of the extensive archives of the angels provide any answers. It takes the awakening of one of the ancients who has been sleeping almost since the start of time to provide a solution.

Meanwhile, Elena is dealing with her father's major heart attack and the fear that she will lose him before they can ever reconcile. As she is going through emotional trials, Raphel is dealing with one of the Cadre going into sleep and leaving his territory unsupervised which is very destabilizing in a world that is already teetering on the edge of collapse.

This story was a very emotional one and very fast-paced. The Cadre are racing to deal with a crisis that could cause the destruction of all living things on Earth while Elena deals with her emotional trauma. 

Fans of the series won't want to miss this one. 

Favorite Quote:

Some wounds didn't ever vanish; they just faded with time, until you could look at them without bleeding and breaking.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.