Revelation by Erica Hayes – a Review

Revelation by Erica Hayes is the first book in her new Seven Signs series.  Below is a description of the series. This is an early review, as Revelation will not be released until October 2nd. I will do my best to not reveal any spoilers.

Description of Seven Signs:
The Seven Signs is an apocalyptic paranormal series, set in the near future against the backdrop of a twisted Biblical Apocalypse. It is urban fantasy/romance, since it’s a mixture of both, with strong dark fantasy elements but also a pivotal romance (with HEA) in each book.

In ancient Biblical prophecy, seven dreadful signs herald the End of Days—the pouring out of seven golden vials, brimming with the wrath of God. For centuries, the vials have remained hidden, lest their plagues be unleashed to destroy the world. But now, demons are hunting down the vials one by one, eager to twist that righteous wrath and bring on their own Dark Apocalypse. And only their immortal enemies can stop them—seven fierce fallen angel warriors known as the Tainted Host.

Shunned by heaven for their sins, yet chained in holy servitude, the Tainted are offered this one last hope of redemption. But virtue is a weakness when the enemy’s weapons are seduction and lies. 

It’s time to challenge the demons at their own game.

The battleground? The dark and despicable city of Babylon, USA, a hive of greed and vanity we once called New York.

Seven vials. Seven demon princes. Seven Tainted angels of vengeance. Tonight, the End begins…

Revelation Review:

Revelation is the first novel in Erica Hayes’ Seven Signs series, which is a dark Urban Fantasy romance. This is a futuristic story of what happens when the dark side gets it’s hands on the seven vials that have been hidden for centuries, which is supposed to bring down the holy wrath of God, and the End of Days.  In Hayes story, there are seven dark demon princes, doing their deeds for Satan; seven tainted fallen angels, who become the warriors who fight against evil, and the seven vials that mean the destruction of the world.  But in the Demon’s minds, they don’t want end of days, they want to turn earth into their own eternal hell playground.   From the start, we find that Zombies are killing humans, and are beginning to multiply, and humans are also dying from the plague.  The many demons are playing havoc, as the story starts in Babylon (old new york city), and bodies are building up in the morgue.

Dr. Morgan Sterling, is a scientist and assistant medical examiner trying desperately to find a cure for this plague.  Of course, she has no idea, that the demons are responsible for this plague.  Morgan is a hard nosed, tough doctor, who has built her life in trusting no one, and only cares about her work. 

We meet the seven tainted angels, each having been delegated out of Heaven by some various different mistakes they made.  They all report to the archangel Michael, who is portrayed in this book, as wild, arrogant and not a nice guy.  He really does not care about his tainted angels, but he makes sure they do what needs to be done to protect the humans and fight the demons.  Each of the tainted angels, want redemption and, to be able to go back to Heaven someday.  Of the seven tainted angels, Dash is the leader, with the others following him. Erica Hayes does a wonderful job creating these characters, as I thoroughly enjoyed each of these angels (not Michael). In this book, we get to know them all, see how they work together, and care about each other.

But the hero in Revelation is Luniel (Lune), who starts off becoming suspicious and brings in the other angels as he senses the vials might be missing and in the wrong hands.  Lune finds his brother at the morgue, and meets our heroine, Morgan. 

From that point on, this adventure is filled with action, violence, betrayal, and it is non stop.  Morgan, who is a disbeliever, finds herself fighting off her attraction to Lune, whom she wants to trust but cannot due to her childhood issues, and stubbornness that this is a plague that she can cure.  Lune, having been celibate for 800 years, after losing his love to the demons and hell, finds himself becoming very attracted to Morgan.  Though Morgan was stubborn in her disbelief, even seeing the wings, she at first had no choice but to help the angels try to stop the destruction; then she totally became a believer after seeing all the horrific things being done to humans. Morgan and Lune, as time goes on becomes a great romance, that developed over a short period, as each had to fight their own issues. This really was a great romance, especially with all the darkness surrounding this story. 

I really liked some of these great characters, especially our great, but fun angel warriors, such as Jaz, Jaspeth, Iria,Trillion as well as Dash.  They are all major characters that make this story fun. Throughout this dark fantasy, Hayes was able to bring in a lot of humor, wittiness to break up the tension.  As I have said, this story was filled with tense action, violence, horrible demons, and yet managed a wonderful romance.  Great start to a new series, as I cannot wait for the next book…Redemption.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Author