Warning: This book contains adult language and sexual content.
Bryce's Take:
Darker Angels continues The Black Suns Daughter series from Daniel Abraham, AKA MLN Hanover. In this second installment, more mayhem ensues, as main character Jayne receives a phonecall that there's a demon loose in New Orleans.
This book surprised me initially, since I expected for Jayne to have progressed a little bit more in her understanding of the supernatural and what was going on around her. The book begins more quickly than I had thought it would, taking place just a few weeks or months after the first book. Development-wise, Jayne is coming into her own a little more as a character, which I liked. This is going to be one of those reviews where I say that if you liked the first book, you'll like the second one as well. The twists and turns didn't seem quite as exciting to me this time around, and I figured out what was going on about twenty pages before the characters, but that's to be forgiven. Maybe the foreshadowing was too heavy, or maybe I was particularly brilliant in my insight.
This book is an opportunity for the reader to really settle in and get into the series. Jayne's a little more mature, and a little more thoughtful. Those polished gems of ideas about demons moving from person to person, using them as horses don't shine quite as much as they used to, but that's only because the idea isn't brand new anymore. This second effort is worthy of the original, and expands the world that this story is taking place in. I also love that Jayne has the means to travel the globe, since so many urban fantasy books revolve around the idea of "one wizard, one town." I enjoy that the scenery changes with each book, and Abraham does just enough to get me into each new setting. Using New Orleans in this second installment was brilliantly done, and I enjoyed the atmosphere that it created for the book.
Darker Angels (8.5/10) is a worthy sequel to Unclean Spirits, and I'm definitely looking forward to continuing the series later this fall when Vicious Grace is set to come out.
Darren's Take:
Darker Angels was a very good sequel to Unclean Spirits, and I think I like this series maybe slightly more than Bryce, because I didn't think that anything wasn't polished or shiny. The idea still had a lot more fleshing out to do (the demons I mean) and this book delivers. I'm gonna surprise you all and... agree with Bryce about the rest of what he said. If anything, this book delves even deeper into the emotional angle, and by the end I wasn't sure that Legba was all that bad (it's not a spoiler if you have no context). I found myself able to get emotionally invested (at least slightly) in a demon, a serial killer, and a guy who really needs to stop being such a dick and get laid (I can kind of understand that one, hehehe). I'll keep this short, only saying that it was an interesting turn for the plot to take, and it didn't suffer at all from the dreaded Book 2 Lull that happens so often in trilogies.
Another 9 of 10, and I hope that I can be one of your ARC readers in the future, Mr. Hanover (Or Mr. Abraham, whichever you prefer).
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