Rating: 3.75 stars
Buy Links: Amazon | All Romance
Length: Novella
Rowan McCall is a painter at the beginning of his career. At the end of a successful show where he sells all but one of his paintings, he’s attacked and left blind. This, of course, is the worst possible fate imaginable for an artist. Rowan’s so desperate to be able to paint again, he sells his soul to a demon in order to have his sight returned to him.
Rowan’s guardian angel, Zethan, shows up just a moment too late and is unable to save Rowan from his fate. It would seem the demon and guardian angel have history as well. The love that they once had for each other still burns bright between Zethan and the demon, once an angel named Laz. In order to save the soul of Rowan, and perhaps because he still harbors strong feelings for Laz, Zethan agrees to make a deal with the demon to save Rowan’s soul. (Just to be clear, all of these deals involve having sex.)
Rowan’s upset because his sight has been taken once again and Laz knows Zethan will be damned unless he is able to save the angel from the ultimate punishment. Essentially, Laz becomes a part of Rowan and lives inside his body, while Zethan receives his punishment from heaven, which means he will lead merely a human life. Laz has no idea if he will see the angel he still loves, and while he inhabits Rowan’s body, the two hold out hope that they will cross paths with the man.
Even as I’m writing this, I’m getting a little confused. This was the biggest failing with this book. I loved the characters — the angel, the demon, and the artist — and I felt the love that Zethan and Laz, bound to the laws of heaven and hell, were unable to have with one another. It was tragic and heart-breaking and I really wanted them to find true love together. So I was willing to suspend some disbelief to accept all the body hopping in order to reunite the lovers.
The problem was, the world building just wasn’t quite complete. We were dealing with the powers of heaven, hell, and earth in a 70ish page novella, and there wasn’t enough time to explain why things happened the way that they did. How Laz ended up inside of Rowan is still a mystery to me, as well as the sequence of events that occur in the final pages of the book. Yes, it was romantic and ultimately led to our HEA, but it left me with more questions than I would’ve liked.
It seemed there wasn’t a lot of consequences for actions here. All turned out well for everyone involved, especially the artist, who ends up with his sight and his soul and love in the end. Still, I’d recommend this book for those who like a romance with an original element. It was sweet, it was steamy, and it had super sexy scenes involving an artist and a model who can’t keep their eyes and hands off of one another, which is never a bad thing.
