I received this book for free through a LibraryThing giveaway. Really loved this book! The twists were super interesting and kept me motivated to read it - would definitely recommend this to other readers! ( )

I loved the book and the way the story line flowed together. There was a ton of different twist that kept me captivated and interested in the story. Once I started reading the book I could not put it down.

I love the idea of angels and demons coming into your dreams and if the demons kill you in your dream then you actually die in your "real" life also.
Very interesting book for sure! ( )

As it happens, I was reading Purgatory’s Angel alongside From Above by Norah McClintock (review coming up next), which equates to one seriously over-written book alongside a minimalistically-styled book.

If you’re a writer or a wannabe writer, this is just the kind of situation you could delight in because, while the books are from two different genres, they provide such clear-cut examples of how not to write and how to write, respectively.

First, let me share the plot of Purgatory’s Angel.

Jaime is a dark angel who has been sent to earth to kill demons. She does this by entering their dreams and killing them. Lately though, she’s been delighting a little too much in playing the cat-and-mouse game, teasing her prey, and hasn’t really been paying attention to what’s going on.

Collin is a mystery. He has a scent like Irish greenery and the famous Irish moors outside of Dublin and bright green eyes to match. He’s intriguing, but Jaime thinks that he may be a demon, stalking her in her dreams and planning to kill her.

While I was reading, several things occurred to me. (Yes, this tends to happen when a book has too much exposition, but we’ll get back to that in a moment.) The plot reminded me of an old Dennis Quaid movie, Dreamscape, in which he plays a psychic who is able to go into the dreams of other people. After I was done thinking about that movie in comparison to this novel, I then thought about Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning and how that novel and the subsequent ones in the series define sexual tension in paranormal books with the relationship of Mac and Jericho.

So why was I thinking about Darkfever? Comparison. You see, Purgatory’s Angel desperately wants to be as hot as Darkfever, but it can’t happen without building up tension between characters. And, there’s also the fact that if you have your characters become intimate while she’s still all banged up, the reader is only going to question how this can be sexy instead of really painful. (Yes, I know that there are people who enjoy that, but it was not actively stated in the novel.😉 )

The beginning of Purgatory’s Angel has too much prose and it’s told in present tense, which in shorter pieces doesn’t strike me as jarring, but here it did. Also, the prose contains a lot of “telling” and not much “showing.” During the climax scene, there is backstory filling, which should have been spread throughout the novel. It reminded me of old mysteries in which the detective would lead you through why this all happened, but that’s usually after the climax and not during.

With all of that said, if Purgatory’s Angel had undergone a lot of editing and rewrites, it would be vastly superior. This is definitely a case of an author loving her writing too much. The story is intriguing. Even when I saw the Dennis Quaid movie, I thought the idea of a character entering another’s dreams to do battle was fascinating. The character of Jaime is kind of cool, but her attitude frequently made me feel “meh.” The talk of marriage between her and Rick after maybe a week or just a tad more of knowing him? Squirrelly. In fact, the whole triangle just felt off, but then I never was good at geometry.

I received a copy of Purgatory’s Angel through LibraryThing’s early reviewers program in exchange for an honest review. ( )

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NOTE: I was given a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review.
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Purgatory's Angel is the first book in the Dark Angel Series by B. Hughes-Millman
Dark Angels fight demons in their sleep. Piques your interest, sounds original, doesn't it? It did to me when I read the blurb on Library Thing and I was 'awarded' one of the books.
The first few chapters were a bit slow, laying out some of the base of how Jamie fights demons in her dreams. Stick with it, I did and was hooked. The more I read, the more involved I got. It's a well written, complex story with twists and turns … sometimes more questions than answers, but it's all revealed as the chapters go by. It's interesting how waking and sleeping worlds are weaved together. The demons in the dreams are really human's with evil souls. When a Dark Angel kills one in the dream world, they die in the waking world, and if a demon kills someone in the dreams, they die in the real world. Very interesting concept and pretty original.
Jaime is a strong, believable, multilayered main character, with the right amount of snark that sometimes hides her sadness and pain that's just below the surface. All the characters are believable with multiple facets to their personalities. Who is the 'good guys', the 'bad guys' or are they both at one point or the other in the story? Actually liked it that it kept you guessing, revealing more and more as you go along. And there are surprises… but that's as much as I can go, spoilers you know.
There's really only one sex scene in the book or really one chapter. It's not over the top, and fits nicely into the storyline.
Skinny: Slow start leads into a "I don't want to put it down" story with twist turns and surprises. Complex, believable, love them-hate them characters. You take away the thought that no matter how bad things get you fight the good fight because it's the right thing to do. ( )

This is a dark story about what the would could be like if angels and demons existed on our earth. While the story is intriguing, it is also rather depressing. ( )