Book Review: Key of Solomon by Cassiel Knight

Synopsis:

Trust no one…except the one who walks in the dark.

Anthropology PhD candidate Lexi Harrison never bares it all when she belly dances for a strip club crowd. She doesn’t have to—she’s that good. Every performance earns money toward her degree, and restores the sense of power that her painful childhood ripped away.

Something is different about tonight. A man whose silver gaze seems to touch her skin beneath her veils. When a rowdy customer crosses the line, he comes to her rescue with the speed of a falcon—complete with wings.

Mikos Tyomni has never seen anyone dance the raqs sharqi like Lexi. Trust his tormentor, Archangel Michael, to put him in close contact with the cause of his downfall: a mortal woman. Particularly this mortal woman. The Defender. He has only thirty days to win her trust before Hell’s deadliest demons attempt the mother of all prison breaks.

No matter how sexy the messenger is, Lexi’s career plans don’t include some crazy idea that she’s the last line of defense against the forces of evil. Until her university mentor’s murder leaves her holding the key to Hell. And fighting a losing battle against a passion with the unholy power to bring down Heaven…

Warning: This title contains a dark and sexy fallen angel, bad-ass demons, a heroine with kick-assitude tossed together with mythology, archeology and a shape-shifting rock with a fondness for the gangsters of the 1920s.

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About the Author:

In the job that pays the mortgage and allows her to indulge in her real passion, writing, Cassiel Knight works in the beautiful state of Oregon. Crazy-passionate about the romance writing industry, Cassiel has a paranormal romance series featuring fallen angels and demons from Samhain Publishing, an urban fantasy through Lyrical Press and a Egyptian mythology/archeology series with Champagne Book Group. She writes paranormal romances with kick-assitude that blend archeology and mythology – just a few of her favourite things.

My Review:

I read the first book in this series for this tour. I must say it was a refreshing change to some of the other paranormal books I’ve been reading. It was kind of a Lara Croft Tomb Raider mash-up with a paranormal romance. Lexi is a great protagonist, one that really proves her worth in the first book, as someone you want to see do well.

From a writer’s perspective, I have a bit of a pet peave about starting books with the character’s name. It’s not a huge error or anything, but as a writer myself I prefer to have the start of a book more of a delicate weave than just an info dump of back story – however, this is just me and there are probably many others who don’t see it that way. There were some lovely turns of phrase in there and the whole book was paced well and had some very well-thought out characters in – which does make a difference.

The front cover is okay, but has Mikos on there rather than Lexi, although I see that this is changed for book two, I still think she deserved to be front and centre.

Overall, I’d give Key of Solomon 4 out of 5 stars, a solid read with a great story line – I’m looking forward to reading book two.