Black Wings

Today's post is on 'Black Wings' by Christina Henry. It is 295 pages long and it published by ACE which is an imprint of Penguin Books. The cover is a grey scale picture of a woman with the hint of wings behind her. The only color is the red of the title. It has a tag line of 'She's an agent of Death who really needs to get a Life.' very clever.  The intended reader is someone likes urban fantasy and is over the age of 15 because of some of the sexual things that happen. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

Madeline Black is an agent of Death. Her calling or duty is to help the souls of the departed to the other side. She does not really like her job but it is in her blood as in she inherited the job from her mother who was murdered when Maddie was 14. As far as Maddie knew her father was a deadbeat who knocked her up and exited stage left. So begins our tale. In the first few pages there is a murder, Maddie is attacked, and she finds that she has powers that no other agent has. There are dreams about the long lost past, there are good looking men, who of course want Maddie, and there are more fallen angels that you can shake a stick at. In the end the answers to the questions are given but if you are like me then the answers are not a surprise but what you guessed would happen from the first vision/dream.

I wanted to like this book more than I do. It has some very interesting plot threads with death being a big bureaucracy, fallen angels and a spunky heroine who wants to understand what is going on around her. But Henry does not live up to the promise of the plot line(s). She does not really do anything with what she has. The story does go from A to B but nothing really happens. People talk, the reader gets more information about an interesting world, there is a kiss (not even that great of one because Maddie faints during it) but that is it. I am not going to buy the next book but get it from my library because I still want this series to turn out. But I am also not putting any money on that. All in all I am very disappointed with this book because like I said I really wanted to like it.

My rating is 2 stars. I get nothing for my review, sadly I spent my own money on this book.