Burning Dawn (Angels of the Dark Book 3)

The continuing story of the dark angel, Thane, offers an opposites attract romance paranormal-style. There is a range of tone, strong character development and engaging ongoing story of the misfit group of warrior angels and their battle against demons with earth in the middle. I enjoyed the story as I always do when it comes to this author's writing, but I was left wanting more too.This book could be read as a standalone in a pinch, but I wouldn't recommend it. The overall story line about the group of last chance angels and Thane's story in particular both begin with the first book and continue through to this one.With that in mind, the story opens with Thane being kept as a mindless sex slave by Kendra who used her phoenix poison to entrap him so that he forgets everything including his name and former life all in her act of vengeance because he dumped her out of his bed and back with her people. Another slave, Elin, is a half-breed who is reviled by the others and she can only look forward to being treated as less than a dog and abusively used for the rest of her life. In the big warrior Sent One, she sees her chance. The plan works only too well. Thane remembers, he decimates the camp and takes the phoenix prisoners to daily torture them. Elin is brought along to keep her safe from being recaptured by other phoenix. She will work in Thane's club up in the clouds, save her money and head back to the human world to continue her husband's dream of running a bakery and honor his memory by living out her life in loneliness.Thane will exact his revenge against Kendra and the others for what she did to him, he will continue his duties as the second in command to Zacharel in the hunt for the demons who assassinated their leader, he will deal with his darker sado-masochistic nature by taking a new woman each night, he will support similar dark struggles by his two closest friends, but what he will not do is give in to the strong attraction he feels for the human female he rescued at the camp. Only that promise to himself is tough to keep when seeing her working his bar and interacting with the male customers and seeing the way she holds him at arm's length because she is still in love with her dead husband and has survivor's guilt makes him crazy. And for all her timidity toward blood and violence, Elin has a sassy tongue and a strong backbone. She makes him question his ways and tears through the pain in him to make him feel hope for something else that only she could bring if she would let him in.Thane has learned disturbing things about his friend, Bjorn, and sets in motion the plan to rescue him from his horrifying entrapment. Elin is now terrified that Thane will discover her mixed ancestry and is conflicted about her desires for the messed up male. Things do come to a head and some pay the ultimate sacrifice as the dark demonic forces are pushing forward with their end game. It will take all the warriors of the Seventh Group under Zacharel to fight, but in the end Elin must find her courage and strength and Thane must let go of his past.The general storyline on this was exciting, spunky and passionate. It elicited and engaged most of my emotions with its blend of dark and light. Loved that it brings back the band of angel warriors particularly Thane and his best buds Xerxes and Bjorn as well as the lively cast of the workers at Thane's club. And yes, we do have a few Lords sightings. It delves deeper into Thane's life and being right there with him was just as good as I expected it would be from the moment he was introduced and I wanted his story. This guy was seriously messed up and he had a long way to go to heal. He was angry and needed revenge. He needed an outlet for the dark anger thus the bedchamber of tortures. His sense of duty to his friends and fellow warriors was all that was keeping him this side of becoming a fallen. All that changes with the arrival of Elin. She was a ray of sunshine and hope in his life. Not that he made an instant about face and all. He had some ugliness to work out, but he did it with her help. The action scenes against the demons and vengeful phoenix was all good too. They are a side line to Thane's personal struggles and the romance, but they are nicely sprinkled throughout the story. But I was only slightly into Elin, the heroine.I just could barely work up a liking for her. I hated that she had to go through all that she did and I respect the fact that stuff like that will traumatize a person which is exactly what the problem was. I wasn't convinced that she was really broken by that stuff though I kept getting told that she was. Her issues didn't ring true for me. She didn't come across as traumatized as much as a ditz. Like the freakouts over blood left me rolling my eyes and the hot and cold treatment with Thane made me lose respect fast. I know this last bit is sort of ironic since that is exactly what Thane did to all his women, but the fundamental difference is that they knew the score whereas with little miss wishy-washy it was always a crapshoot if even she knew what she was doing. She couldn't be honest with herself or with Thane. She repeatedly hurt him, but had the attitude that it was okay because he was a manwhore that hurt people still not seeing that those others volunteered to be used and to use Thane while Thane wanted something more with her and said so. It's always tough for me to picture these ancient warrior angels with a person of human age, but I really couldn't buy that someone who went through what Thane did could see Elin as more than a passing amusement particularly the way she was acting.Now usually, I don't notice the tone of the story so much other than to admire when its really well done, but there was an imbalance so that it stuck out for me. One of the strong traits in the author's books is the humor which I know is tricky to get just right. The witty dialogue and mental thoughts have me laughing and wishing I could be that snappy. However, in this particular story, it didn't work as much for me. Lesser would have been better. This is a darker story because of the characters' pasts and they are messed up and broken to start and by helping each other they start to heal and grow happy. This is visible to me as the reader, but then the tone is distorted by the addition of the quirks and snark that is nearly a running commentary between Elin's words and thoughts. Because of this, her character took a hit. She comes across as insensitive, shallow and selfish. Thane has the right balance of dark and occasional wit. I won't deny that I laughed and was amused, but I was also disappointed to not get the depth that the story promised.Overall, I enjoyed the story and I will most definitely be continuing with the series. While I couldn't overlook what bugged me, it didn't make me want to quit reading either. All the strong points balanced it out for me. I love the angel brotherhood, their individual redemption stories that involve their special soul mate to heal them and the blend of passion and humor. Lovers of paranormal romance should try these books.

I love this book. This series. Hell, I love Gena Showalter. I started with Lord's of the Umderworld and then moved on to this series. And this is probably the dozenth ti.e I've read them. As with most of Showalter ls books, each one I read becomes my new favorite. You don't think they can get any better, and then they do!! If you like mythology, Greek lore, fantasy, romance novels, action..... definitely give this author a try! She's, (to borrow a word from Anya and company) amazballs!

I can't even say how happy I was that this book was not like Beauty Awakened. If it had been even a fraction as preachy as that one was, I would have probably abandoned this series. Thank you so much for not being so.Thane has fallen far from who he was as a warrior sent one, but he doesn't remember. He doesn't even know his own name. The only thing he does know is that he exists for nothing but to have sex with Kendra. Thanks to a special poison of a sort that she uses to addict males to her. So he has been bound in the phoenix camp and used at her leisure since he was taken. The problem with not getting into the last book seemed to be the fact that I could not remember for life of me how Thane ended up in Kendra's possession. It wasn't until we got the little summary of it, that it all came back in an 'oh yeah!' moment.Watching as Thane became a mindless, memoryless, sex slave to Kendra is Elin. When her mother left the clan after falling in love with a human, it was one of the biggest taboos the phoenix have. And about twenty years later, she was found. The phoenix killed not only Elin's father, but also her husband of only three months. Taking her mother to use as a breeder and Elin as a half-breed to torment and use as any saw fit. And after watching her mother die, she truly becomes alone. But she's a dreamer and has big plans for her future. And when she sees an opportunity to escape via Thane, she takes it.Thanks to Elin, Thane has remembered everything and found his freedom. But he's also consumed with revenge against the phoenix and makes his feelings about them abundantly clear to all. He finds himself inexplicitly drawn to Elin and swears to take care of her. But as much as she is attracted to him as well, he terrifies her. Even more so if he were to find out her half phoenix heritage. But that fear is not the only thing driving her to push him away. She blames herself for her husband's death and refuses to allow herself to have anything that was taken away from him. Including happiness. Thane has no idea what he's doing when he's around her, so his courtship is actually quite sweet. They slowly become closer and he even tries to convince her that her husband would want her to be happy, which she starts to consider. But then her secret comes out and Thane blows up. When he comes to his senses, it's too late and he has to try to win Elin back again. Really, for a guy who is clueless about having a relationship with a woman, I found his actions quite endearing. Yeah, okay, he can be pretty overbearing sometimes too...but that kinda just makes him hotter. Things are starting to look up for them when things come to a head.The whole time after Thane's escape, he's a busy man. Aside from trying to woo Elin, he's hunting the demons that killed one of the big guys, dealing with the phoenix king after what Thane did to his people, and trying to figure out what the heck is going on with Bjorn. I gotta say, this book was quite a bit more violent than I expected, but it was pretty great. What kind of warrior doesn't hack bad guys apart? The demons thing turned out to be a big deal because as they find out, it was six demon princes responsible for the murder. And the one that has it out for Thane has more power than they expected. And he uses that to change Elin forever in an attempt to bring Thane down.I obviously liked Thane's character. Mostly so when he changed to be better for Elin. And while I also liked Elin, sometimes her personality or decisions/feelings seemed to change directions with little reason or for odd ones. She easily befriends people though, especially the girls she worked with at Thane's bar. Which reminds me. Why do girls who are centuries old always talk like teenagers?We got to see Lucien a bunch of times, and even his Anya once in this book. ((Would it be too much to ask to get a little of Ashlyn and Maddox too?)) Lucien helped shed light onto what's been going on with Bjorn, and I almost wonder if his book will be next because he totally needs to figure out a way to divorce the shadow queen that has claimed him...

This book is different than the first two in the series. To be honest I wasn't sure about reading Thanes story, in the first two he and his friends were freaky but it was totally amazing. I love the heroine, so cute. I recommend this series.

Very well written and kept you wanting to read more. Thrilling and exciting with a strong compelling storyline.

I liked this. I've really enjoyed reading about the Sent Ones. Apparently their stories are being incorporate into the LOTU series. I hope they are still full novels and not just quick novellas because I really like these characters.I liked Elin and her posse of new friends (who all seem quite interesting). If you liked the harpies in LOTU (and how could you not?) then you should like this lot. Same entertaining chaos. I liked Thane, too.This was an enjoyable read, and I'm looking forward to stories about Xerxes, Bjorn and Axel.

Gena has done it again as always but when's the next one it's been a long time since we have had another angel of the dark book not that I don't love the Lord of the underworld 😀.I didn't think I'd like this book after where it had left it in the last book but I had nothing to worry about gena knows exactly what she's doing. A massive 5 stars from me 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Great!!!!! loved this book. As far as relationships goes with characters this Is the closest you're going to get to the black dagger brotherhood friendships(only the first few and minus the vampirism) and hilarious banter. Witty and taking no crap from anyone girls. It is truly a brilliant book amongst paranormal romance.