Mandy Reviews: Darker Angels by M. L. N. Hanover

ISBN #: 978-1416576778

Page Count: 360

Copyright: 2009

Publisher: Pocket Books

Book Summary:

(Taken from back cover)

When Jayne Heller's uncle Eric died, she inherited a fortune beyond all her expectations - and a dangerous mission in a world she never knew existed. Reining in demons and supernatural foes is a formidable task, but thankfully Jayne has vast resources and loyal allies to rely on. She'll need both to tackle a body-switching serial killer who's taken up residence in New Orleans, a city rich in voodoo lore and dark magic.

Working alongside Karen Black, a highly confident and enigmatic ex-FBI agent, Jayne races to track down the demon's next intended host. But the closer she gets, the more convinced she becomes that nothing in this beautiful, wounded city is exactly as it seems. When shocking secrets come to light, and jealousy and betrayal turn trusted friends into adversaries, Jayne will soon come face-to-face with an enemy that knows her all too well, and won't rest until it has destroyed everything she loves most ...

Mandy's Review:

Darker Angels is the second book in The Black Sun's Daughter series. To read my review of the first book, Unclean Spirits, you can click here.

Only a few months have passed between the first book and this one. During that time, Jayne has been traveling with her entourage cataloguing all of her late Uncle Eric's properties and possessions. While in London, Jayne receives a call from a lady needing the special services her Uncle Eric provided. Jayne agrees to have her team fly to New Orleans to assess the situation and see if they're able to help.

Even before Jayne's meeting with Karen, a new type of spirit enters Jayne's life and tries to obliterate her ... which, now that I think about it, seems to be an ongoing theme for the first two books of this series so far. Almost as soon as both books begin, Jayne is in a life-threatening situation against an evil entity (be it spirit or demon) and needs assistance to diffuse the situation. It is a way to grab the reader's attention, but I hope the third book begins a little differently.

What I loved about this book is that it incorporates the spookiness of New Orleans with the focus on voodoo. I also liked the fact that this book took place in an entirely different city than the first book (Denver, Colorado). This time around, though, tensions creep up amongst Jayne's team, adding to the already mounting tension of the job they're working on. Both situations comes to a head and an important person on the team gets fired.

Will they reconcile and come back together? How much will Jayne get involved with voodoo and the voodoo practices to eliminate the threat Karen called her about? Will the threats and dangers to the members of the team be too much and injure them beyond full healing?

I am excited to begin the third book in this series to see what happens next. This is definitely a series for readers who enjoy supernatural fantasy books with an increasingly stronger female lead.