Review: Archangel's Eternity

I had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Archangel’s Eternity and am still in awe after two full reads, a re-read of the entire series and a final re-read of my favorite passages in the book.

The truth is, I'm a huge fan of Nalini Singh and this series in particular is at the very top of my list of favorites. You know the kind I'm talking about: a series you will read every single year, sometimes more than once a year, because it's truly exceptional, in a way that isn't limited to a single book or even several, but instead spans the entirety of the series.

Reading Archangel’s Eternity was a mix of joy and sorrow, for I was back in the world of Raphael and Elena, in a world populated by angels and vampires, as always a joyous experience, and yet, this time, I was saying goodbye to a world I’ve spent almost two decades inhabiting.

As a series ender, Archangel’s Eternity was unlike any series ender I’d ever read before. At its core, it is a tribute to love, in all its various forms, between lovers, between friends, between a parent and their child and vice versa. Love radiates from the pages as we visit Raphael and Elena one thousand years into their love story.

If you had told me when I started this series with Angels’ Blood that seventeen years and seventeen books later, I would be reading the end to that love story set a thousand years in the future, I would never have believed it. It’s a massive and incredibly bold undertaking for an author to leap one’s readers so far into the future (700 years with the last book, then another 300 in this one) that the majority of the human characters they’ve met, known and loved along the way, are long gone from the earth.

I cannot even really describe the extraordinary achievement here. The book feels timeless in a way that is not easily explained. I don’t want to give anything away, but the storylines surrounding who sleeps and who wakes are some of the most hauntingly beautiful passages I’ve ever read, and some of the most romantic as well. I cannot count the number of times I teared up, just from the love that literally saturates the pages, between all the various characters as they wander through eternity.

Ultimately, the Guild-Hunter series is an amazing achievement, and this final installment, its crowning glory. Exquisitely, hauntingly beautiful, Archangel’s Eternity left me with a sense of wonder at the many, varied ways we are blessed by our capacity for love. I will miss Raphael and Elena and the world they inhabit, though I will continue to revisit them often. 

5 out of 5 stars, highly recommended.