The Rising are going from strength to strength, their demonic goal is nothing less than the end of the world. And to achieve that they’re opening the seven seals and unleashing the four horsemen. War has already consumed the planet, with worse to come.Against them stand the descendants. Descendants of 9 holy women each with their own gifts and talents who strive to counter The Rising and hope for their prophecy to come true – that one will be born who is descended from all 9 of the Primatus.And into this strides Allison, teenage mother, in a very rocky relationship, just trying to get by in Texas as the world falls apart. Until she comes into her power and is brought by David to the Descendants – because she could be the one. Whether she is or not, the leader of the Rising thinks she is and isn’t taking any chances in letting her live.The concept of this story is an interesting take on a lot of old memes and I really like the combination. The demons have chosen their humans according to classic sins and their descendants seek to end the world. On the good side we have angels tapping 9 super holy women so their descendants can oppose them. Each bloodline has special powers and you can collect them all. The ultimate good guy will be born who is descended from all 9 of the first holies making her the super-duperest good guy of them all. She is, of course, prophesised. It’s a classic story that has been in many different forms but can still be a good one (they even had Castafonda whose descendants inspire love – yes they have a useless Heart power!)It’s not nuanced. The bad guys want the end of the world, the good guys want to stop them. Even reading from the bad guy’s point of view they are comically evil – melodramatic in the worst way. They make early comic book villains look like nuanced and human characters with well shades and fascinating motivations.I do like that the origin story is presented as being allegorical. Yes he uses angels as an example, but also points out that in the past the same story was told using Greek gods. Except we then get the seven seals and the four horsemen that don’t work so well. Also Deception is one of the horsemen – damn that seal’s always open. Does he run for government?Much of this is told in info dumps – but it is interesting in and of itself and it does make sense in the setting. In fact, the main thing that makes the info dumps less realistic is Allison’s inability to sit still for 15 minutes so we constantly have the dumping interrupted by them taking a walk or Allison’s internal commentary.This paranormal romance has a lot of unique elements to it as well. We’re all familiar with romances that just cannot be because of the curse/laws/rules/whatever and they tend to be convoluted. This romance has a barrier at the beginning for a very simple, very real, very human reason – Allison’s fiancé who she cared for has recently died.It’s perfectly reasonable – normal even – for David to decide that a romance with Allison so soon after her fiancé and father of her child died was out of the question. It’s even reasonable for him to feel guilty about even thinking of her in that way; natural or not, we respect when someone is grieving and the appropriate ways to relate to them. Similarly, Allison’s guilt over betraying Alex is reasonable as well. That’s also a very natural part of the grieving process, worrying we’re moving on too soon, thinking we’re disrespecting their memory.I also liked that the romance happened slowly. Yes there was a moment of instant attraction and the description of their mutual hotness at length, but then the relationship took a long time to become a relationship. Weeks, perhaps months of talking to each other, knowing each other, working together before we finally got the lust definitively turning into love.Read More
