Faith Hunter’s Bloodring, Seraphs, and Host read like one novel split into three. (I suspect that’s because it really is one book split up.) The action flows from book to book. If you have the opportunity to read them one right after the other, like I did, it really seems like one story. All the action from the end of one just sets up the action for the next. And the ending in Host, the last book, is absolutely spectacular.
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| Bloodring |
In Bloodring, Hunter introduces us to Thorn’s world. When I first picked up this series, I was a little nervous because of the covers and because of the main character’s name. It sounds a lot like a soap opera character, to be blunt. At any rate, Thorn’s world is based on ours, but it in a post-Apocalyptic ice age. In this world, the Apocalypse was a no-fooling show down between Good and Evil, angels and devils. But, unlike in the stories, the world didn’t come to an end. Thorn is a stone mage, one of a new race of people that cropped up after the beginning of the big war to everyone’s surprise. Thorn is hiding in plain site in a town in what used to be North Carolina, but gets outed as a mage after she gets involved in her ex-husband’s kidnapping by dark creatures. Bloodring sets the stage for a huge plot that spans the other two books in the series. Thorn comes out on top in this one, but it turns out to be just the first round.
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| Seraphs |
Seraphs, book two, clues Thorn into the fact that the Darkness she faced in the previous story was something much, much scarier than she had realized. She also learns that there were more captives held than just her ex-husband: a seraph and his cherub. While trying to figure out how to free the angel and his mate and keep her skin intact. Meanwhile, she has to deal with the prejudice of a good half of her town, orthodox types who harbor a deep, deep hatred of mages. Thorn also learns that she has a lot more power than she realized. She has power over the angels themselves, and can use a cherub’s wheels (see Elijah in Kings for a description). While she manages to defeat the creature under the mountain this time, now Thorn has to watch out for the seraphs, who will kill her if she steps out of line.
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| Host |
Host brings it all together. The book only spans a few days, most of it the big showdown between Thorn, her allies, and the Big Bad. It’s almost on the scale of the end of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It almost makes me wish I could have seen it, instead of read it. It turns out that she’s facing Azazel, a fallen angel really high up in the hierarchy, right up there with Lucifer. While most would probably have turn tail and run for the hills, Thorn stays at her post, gathering allies and working on a plan to save her town. There’s so much going on that it’s a little hard to keep track of everything, but it was a ripping read.
There are quite a few loose ends at the end of the book, which makes me wonder if Hunter is going to revisit Thorn’s world. But how do you top the end of Host, with Thorn and the angels, etc., taking on Azazel?