On an archaeological expedition, Bayla Gideon, is widowed by a supernatural force and branded with the Hand of Miriam or Knowing Eye. Threatened by evil, she awakens the golem; a mythical man of clay, who protected the Jewish community over three centuries ago.
The golem, Gesher, is surprised. Freedom –by a beautiful, enchanting woman. His desire is to return to the celestial spheres and regain … regain his status as an avenging angel. Yet, Bayla challenges his mind, body and soul. Would he risk his return to the heavens for her?
Besides, dealing with the otherkind, mad inventors and an unrelenting matchmaking aunt, Bayla is equally determined to resist her steamy attraction to the striking fallen angel.
Thrust into a malevolent war, which includes facing Jack the Ripper, they must resist the magnetic pull toward each other, while protecting the world from encroaching evil.
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I am a fan of paranormal, supernatural, fantasy, and romance. But angels are my favorite. Check out the book!
Thank you, Eva Gordon!
4 stars overall, 3 stars story, 4 stars narration
Cool concept and plot but annoying characters
This review is for the audiobook edition.
This romantic urban fantasy has a lot going for it: Jewish characters and culture set in a steampunk Victorian England, a great plot, lots of great action scenes, psychic abilities, and an angel cursed to be a golem. The author incorporates lots of actual things from Jewish religion/culture: the hamsa symbol, the Golem of Prague legend, details of Sephardic Jews and their language, and an absence of heaven in the Christian sense of the word. The urban fantasy aspect was handled very well, but the romantic aspect fell short for me, with emotionally immature primary characters, repetitive thoughts, and disappointing bedroom scenes. I was on the fence on whether to give it 3 or 4 stars overall, but the fantastic action-packed final segment pushed it into being 4 stars, in my opinion.
I must go into further details about the romantic aspect of the novel. I read a lot of romance but also fantasy, urban fantasy, and steampunk fantasy. I don’t think it is necessary in urban fantasy to have a romantic element, but if the author includes one, they need to do it well. Now, I like how in the beginning of the novel, Bayla was devoted to her husband and then was suddenly widowed. I enjoyed the idea that Bayla fell in love with her angel/golem bodyguard Emmet. It was great that the pair were mutually exclusive after they met (i.e., no cheating). However, I did not enjoy that for the majority of the book, Emmet and Bayla had the emotional maturity of 15-year-olds, when he is thousands of years old and she is a 24-year-old widow. Emmet was unreasonably jealous over nothing and was overly arrogant. They both constantly doubted their own feelings and each other’s feelings for at least 60% of the book. That sort of melodrama might be expected in a young adult romance but not in a steamy historical romance. I got so tired of Emmet and Bayla’s wishy-washy thoughts that I had to put down the audiobook at least 5 times. I had to listen to something else until I didn’t want to strangle the pair anymore and I was too curious about the next plot development to stay away anymore. In addition, though the few love scenes happened at the right time in the story, I don’t like the writing style of those scenes. I don’t think the author had good word choices or thought things through very well. For example, in his mind, Emmet compares Bayla to a demoness. When he hates demons, how can that be a good thing? Also, they pledged to keep looking in each other’s while they were doing it, but how can you keep looking in each other’s eyes when you are kissing on the mouth? These are my gripes.
The narrator did a pretty good job. She was excellent at pacing, especially action scenes. I found her voice to be pleasant to my ears. Her character voice for the heroine Bayla was perfect in every way, especially the proper English accent. The narrator’s other character voices were generally very good, except for that of the hero Emmet Gesher. The text indicates that Emmet has a deep voice, but the narrator could not achieve that. Sometimes Emmet’s voice barely sounds masculine, and it does not sound sexy. Also, there were no pauses between chapters and no saying “Chapter 3”, etc. These are the only two problems that I have with the narration.
Bayla Gideon and her husband, Isaac, are on an archaelogical expedition when a strange storm kills everyone but Bayla. Instead, she is left with a mark on her palm which enables her to sense evil intent. Back in England, Bayla decides to unleash a Golem as her protector. But, when Gesher appears, he is so much more than a stone man from mythology.
Bayla is invited (reluctantly) into a secret society and tasked to find evil. Her first major assignment is to find the killer called Jack the Ripper. Along the way, Bayla and Gesher interact with vampires, werewolves, demons, gargoyles and more.
This was an interesting concept for a book, but several things make me give it three star rating. The author has mixed steampunk, secret societies, Jewish lore, and supernatural beings, along with fallen angels and sometimes it just became too much. Also, I wasn’t expecting the book to be such a bodice ripper. After WAY too many references to heaving bosoms, throbbing loins and rippling pectoral muscles, I nearly gave up on the book. I was ready to yell at the characters to just jump into bed and get it over with!
The narrator did a pretty good job, but some of her voices, especially for the men, were cringe-worthy. And, the voices for the main characters were not consistent and made it hard to follow who was speaking (especially when coupled with the numerous unusual names). I enjoyed the story, but there was so much going on that it was hard to follow at times.
Wonderful dry humor.
This book was off the wall good it had a little bit of everything fantasy, paranormal, past lives, myths, angels, sadness, and joy how the author was able to put so much into this book is amazing. The author wrote it with such a wonderful dry humor. The one really brilliant thing the author did was get Doro Jillings to do the narration she put a wonderful twist into the piece. I highly recommend read, listen, or do both you will not go wrong. I did receive a free copy of this book and voluntarily chose to review it.
I liked this book!
The storyline was really intriguing as are most PNR’s, however, some times less is more. I find that when there are a lot of different characters I’m so busy trying to remember who’s who that I lose the essence of the story.
I’m thinking this is the beginning of a series hence the reading for all the background & secondary characters.
The narration was really good!
I received a free copy of this book and I am voluntarily leaving a review.
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