Archangel's Prophecy: Guild Hunter Book 11 (The Guild Hunter Series) Paperback – October 30, 2018

I hesitated to write a review since so many others have. Most importantly to know is that it is a cliffhanger. While I like it overall, I would have just waited to read it when the next book comes out.I will include some spoilers in this review.I like the Guild Series, and I especially like that after one or two books focused on one of the Seven, the author always brings it back to a book about Elena and Raphael. This book focused on significant changes in Elena's body and health due to the chaos brought about by the Cascade, which is an energy flux that is affecting and changing the overall Angelic world. Specifically Elena's health is failing and she is regressing. Of, course since Elena is getting sick, Raphael is having to deal with the turmoil of watching her struggle. To top it off, Elena is hearing a voice which is prophesying her death.The story was intense and while the main subplot, of Elena's brother-in-law being attacked and almost killed took up way too much time and energy, I did think it the rest of the story was quite good. Two main aspects of the book that detracted from the forward progression of this story and the overall series was the unrealistic way that Elena was allowed to continue her activities, and the lack of use of Raphael's team, the Seven.Part of Elena's regression is that her wings are getting weaker and her feathers are falling off; yet she is allowed to continue flying. I cannot believe that the healers that are caring for her, much less Raphael would allow that. The book keeps mentioning, Elena needs her freedom and doesn't like to be caged, but this seems too far fetched. Yes, Elena likes freedom, but she is supposed to be smart and a good Hunter. She would recognize that she is a threat to herself and her team, if she goes on a hunt and is too weak to defend herself or others and Raphael, would give only so much, but would put up a big fight to ground her, if he thought Elena would hurt herself or even die.The other issue I have is that because Elena is a good hunter and Raphael would not want her hurt, teaming up with one, or even different members of the seven would make sooooo much more sense, if she really insisted on hunting, especially as we near the end of the book and she goes on the big chase. It is frustrating to me when an author changes the logic a character normally uses just to get said character to a particular plot point. I think the author should have thought of that.One other thing, there is a great scene with Raphael and the seven, and the author does not utilize all those dynamic characters fully. That was a bit of a wasted opportunity.That being said I know many readers were shaken up about the tone and tenor of this book. It was quite dark. Some even found it triggering because of Elena's deteriorating health. I must admit, I did not take it that way, but if that could be you be aware. I like when author's shake things up a bit, and change the pattern of the books. It keeps it exciting. I also think the author has the right to explore the journeys of the characters, and the story doesn't have to be so linear. We already know the guy got the girl, so now we get to see a little bit of their life after their initial HEA. That is really interesting to me.One other idea. Raphael takes a dramatic step to try to save his love, Elena in the end. One other reviewer mentioned that she hope the author doesn't do any "feminist" crap and reverse the nature of the relationship and make Elena the physically stronger partner in the relationship because of said action. I, on the other hand, wouldn't be opposed to that, but I don't think that will happen for 2 reasons. 1, because Elena is Angel made and if she became and archangel, I jus think it would take way too much time to get there, and let's face it the Cascade is escalating and there is a war to be fought relatively soon. 2, Raphael is born of 2 archangels and was strong enough before all this and before Elena to ascend to Archangel status on his own at a relatively young age (several thousand years). I think the author will keep the physical power dynamic pretty much the same, I think the point was that as a pair they need each other, and the sum of their relationship is greater than the two individually. Just my thought on the matter.I think this book could have been streamlined a bit, but I disagree that it could have been a novella, as others seemed to think. I like that the author tried something different, even if not every aspect of the story was executed perfectly. I think (and hope), the next book in this series will be a tight, intense, and exciting story that resolves many of the issues that were left open ended in this one. I only hate I have to wait so long.

I'm in the majority on this one and agree that the cliffhanger was poorly done in this one. So 2 main reasons for the 3-star review, which I think I'm being generous with.First, the cliffhanger. Let's just get that out of the way. Lots of series will end with a cliffhanger. But, many of those are shorter novellas and those also leave a bad taste in a reader's mouth because honestly, the writer could have just written one complete book instead. That's not the case here. This is a full-length novel (in terms of length and word count) and should not have ended in a cliffhanger. On the other hand, IF (and that's a big if) this were the penultimate novel in this series, then, and only then, could I possibly allow for a cliffhanger of this magnitude. But, we don't know that this is the penultimate novel. For now, according to the author's website, blog, and Goodreads comments, this is the penultimate novel. But, she also says that "for now" she is contracted for 2 more novels after Archangel's Viper (#10). And that status had changed previously. So, there is no guarantee that this is the penultimate. What if, Aodhan's or Ilium's story takes hold in the author's mind instead? Then the next novel will not be about Elena/Raphael and the Cascade in general. Instead, it will be another side novel about one of the supporting characters.In my opinion and preference, a series can end in a cliffhanger and actually should end in some type of cliffhanger. But, that cliffhanger has to be complete in a way. For instance, the introduction of the Legion. Or learning that Elena has a vampire in her genealogy somewhere. Or learning that Elena was Made into an angel. These are all cliffhangers that complete the immediate plot arc of the current novel while setting up where the series can go next.Here, there is no real conclusion to the overall arc of Archangel's Prophecy. The overall arc in this novel would be that something is going on with Elena--she is dying and Elena and Raphael must beat the prophecy that says she will die. So we know that Raphael "awoke" to eyes of silver, which presumably means that Elena also woke up, and hence she is not dead. But this cliffhanger doesn't work for me. It doesn't really complete the plot arc. And, it cheapened the book and the writer's talent.Another reason why the cliffhanger doesn't work is because it's ambiguity on top of ambiguity. The entire "main" plot is about a mystery. What is happening to Elena? How can they save Elena? What does Cassandra's prophecy mean? Who are the players mentioned in Cassandra's prophecy? What does Cassandra's prophecy mean for Ilium? What is aeclari? There are so many mysteries in the plot itself that ending on such a vague and ambiguous cliffhanger leaves the reader feeling that nothing was resolved.Second (reason for the 3-star review), is the content itself. Earlier, I said that this was a full novel-length book. However, let's take away all the descriptors. This is a personal preference of mine where I do not want so much description, especially 10 books into a series (I already know what characters look like and don't need to be told each time that character makes an appearance). It's not as bad as say in Archangel's Heart (#9), it's still peppered too much into the book and to me served no purpose other than as filler. The author has already created the world and now I just wish for more story.Next, as another reviewer mentioned, the Harrison story is just filler. Honestly, what purpose does it serve? To bring back some characters? On the other hand, we don't get much Galen in most of the books. In this one, we really don't even get much Naasir, Venom, Aodhan, Ilium, Jason, or anyone, really. And, there was no real connection between Harrison and the "main" plot, other than to have Elena do something with her time all day. Harrison's side plot had nothing to do with the Cascade or the archangelic mini-wars overall. It didn't even have much to do with anything, really. So, at the end of the day, the Harrison plot read as just filler to me. In a way, it was another manifestation of this author's tendency to focus too much on the world-building and physical descriptors, which imo is not necessary when you are at Book 10. Books 1-3, maybe, need a lot of the world-building and descriptors. But by Book 10, the readers want story and plot. The Harrison plot was just a boring (imo) look into Elena's daily life, which is part vampire hunting. It happened to involve Harrison, but it could have been anyone else. Honestly, she could have just been on the trail of a vampire that ran out on his contract and there would be no difference to the overall plot at the end of the day. As such, the Harrison sideline served no purpose and is therefore relegated to filler. So, if you take that away, the author has again given us a novella, which really isn't acceptable for what may be the penultimate book.If there is only one more book left, then I have no idea what I'm going into. And, that shouldn't be the case. This book, for all its length, really gave us nothing. Very disappointed. I want to insist that with the way this book turned out, the author needs to give us the next one within 6 months. Preferably 3 months. Only, lately, I've been disappointed in her books. Perhaps she is stretching herself too thin amongst her different series. Or perhaps she's lost focus herself on his series. I don't know the reason. All I know is how I feel after reading this book and it's disappointed. Disappointed in the series, disappointed in the author, and disappointed that even the editor/publisher didn't catch that this book was not up to par.

Essa série só fica melhor a cada livro! Recomendo! (Apesar do final do livro ter deixado um MEGA SUSPENSE com gosto de quero mais!). Não acredito que vou precisar esperar 1 ano para saber o que vai acontecer no próximo livro...

Nailini did it agan! Action packed story with the intense love pulse between Raphael and Elena!.Illium's precence in the story gave it the extra love needed!

I’ve been looking forward to this book all year and as always Nalini never disappoints! The pace was comfortably slower than the last Ellie and Rafe book which I believed was required in their story, they can’t be saving the world the entire time. I’ll be the first to admit I never really cared for Raphael as an alpha hero, he was always over shadowed for me by bright betas like Illium but he really really shone for me in this book.Ah yes all powerful archangel, welcome to the world of the possibilities of mortal loss.It was great to catch up with some old faces and see how all the regular favs were going. Eg Holly always setting fashion and aesthetic goals. I missed a certain broken soul but his absence was well excused, especially thinking about what he was going in the meantime *squeeeeel* Oh Sparkle!I had a couple of moment that were true roll around in bed, biting my lip and accidentally waking my husband at 1am but it was well worth.The ending left off for a crazy upcoming next book and I think that’s what needs to be the focus for us the audience. Oh man whatever is coming, it’s going to be heckers!Thank you as always to the lovely Nalini, her world and characters make for such a beautiful escape. I look forward to it every year and am never disappointed.

今回はまたRaphael & Elenaメインのストーリー。Blurbにある通り基本的にLosing game的な進みなので読んでいてちょっとストレスですが、全体を通してバランス良く以前のメインキャラクター達も登場することでぎりぎり相殺してくれる感じでした。またHonorとMahiyaだけ出番がなかったのはちょっと残念。過去に登場の少なかったキャラクター数名も格上げ的な扱いになっていて、今後主人公扱いになるのか期待です。Vivekの復活ぶりも良い感じでした。笑えたのは日本がpowerfulなAngelやVampire達でいっぱいになっているというニュース。Lijuanのいない、怪しい現象多数な中国から避難してきているとか。6巻Archangel's Legionからずっと気になっていたAeclariの意味もようやく判明。しかし謎はまだまだ残っています。今回はエンディングがCliffhangerになっているので、また1年待つのが辛いところです。

Slightly mixed bag for me I enjoyed this but there was definitely also stuff that I wasn’t quite feeling. I was ecstatic to be getting more Elena and Raphael that’s a given but did find the overarching mystery encompassing Harrison and the decapitated vampires distracting.I found myself trying to race through those bits to get to the parts I was interested in mainly Elena and her fading mortality. All the background buzz just didn’t hold the same importance to me especially when Elena was literally devolving at such a rapid rate.I loved Rachael’s and Elena’s intensity and complete steadfast devotion towards each other. The creepy owls and voices from an unknown ancient prophetess were another nice touch also the legion and their sheer otherworldliness these were all my favourite parts. In my opinion, this just didn’t need the extra plot deviation the Cascade itself with all of its strange occurrences Elena and Raphael and the dangers being faced by them were more than enough to carry this forward.As usual, though this was well written and I do adore Raphael and his hunter mine Elena their love story is the story of legends and so beautifully epic and my heart was hurting right alongside them. This one ends on a slight cliffhanger and I’m excited to see what comes next.