Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: The Dichotomy of Angels
AUTHOR: N.R. Walker
NARRATOR: Nick J. Russo
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 9 hours, 54 minutes
RELEASE DATE: June 15, 2020
BLURB:
Nathaniel and Chasan are no ordinary angels.
Destiny chose them to be twin flames, fated mates. But Nathaniel has avoided Chasan for nearly a thousand years.
When sent to Earth on a mission to live and work together, Nathaniel comes face-to-face with his destiny. Short-tempered, petulant, and grumpy, he hates the idea of being fated to anyone and has chosen an existence of isolation rather than spending time with the calm, kind, and serene Chasan. But now he has no choice.
One is fire, the other is air; a true dichotomy of angels. Together they will be ignited, or they will be extinguished. This assignment will seal their fate either way.
REVIEW:
It’s been a while since I read a story about angels and this story remind me I should go back to them. The Dichotomy of Angels is character driven and focuses on the angels of air and fire; Chasan and Nathaniel. They are fated mates or twin flames in this case, but their bond hasn’t been completed. Nathaniel has been avoiding Chasan and their bond for the past thousand years and now upper management has had enough. St. Peter sends them both on a mission to earth, to New York to be more precise, as married teachers of twenty four year old children. To say that Nathaniel is horrified is putting it mildly, and when you add in a human body prone to anxiety attacks, it makes it all more hilarious. Well, at least for me as an outsider, listening to him trying to figure out his “leaking” (sweating) and possibly malfunctioning body. Anyway, Chasan and Nathaniel have only been given the briefest of instructions about their time on earth, and it’s up to them to try to figure out which child they’ve been sent to help.
However the mission and the child are only in the periphery. The focus of this story is Chasan and Nathaniel and their twin flames, their relationship. For the past thousand years Nathaniel has been haunted by memories of his last mission, a mission that went horribly wrong. It caused him to withdraw from everything and everyone, punishing himself by monitoring the hell-department. Chasan on the other hand has been trying to reach Nathaniel and want nothing more than to complete the bond, something Nathaniel is vehemently against. To say that there’s friction initially during their mission is an understatement.
The idea of the twin flames is interesting, a fire burning inside them both, connecting them and drawing them together. It’s a new take on fated mates and soulmates, but for me the good parts kind of ended there. I never warmed to Chasan or Nathaniel or their romance and for me parts of the story felt drawn out. I don’t know, I expected something else, something more and that’s on me.
I mentioned that this story is character-driven, as so many of Walker’s stories are and she really excels at writing them. That being said, I felt that this time I needed something more, I needed more world-building and backstory, and not just a general idea. To me there were more than a few plot holes, and it felt like integral parts of the story didn’t quite add up. As an example; both Nathaniel and Chasan have been around since the beginning of time, Fate created the bond between them, presumably when they were created themselves. So why didn’t they complete it earlier in the millenias before? Why was it only the last millennia that caused trouble and it was okay to be apart before that? And there were other things like that had me questioning a lot of the events of the book.
The book was expertly performed by Nick J. Russo and he made the book and enjoyable listen. I love how he handled different accents and effortlessly switching between them. He captured the essence of both Nathaniel and Chasan, and I especially loved how he captured Nathaniel’s anxiety and frustration with his newly mortal body and the bodily functions that come with it. He also captured Chasan, his longing for Nathaniel and the hurt of constantly being pushed away. That was heart-felt and plain to hear. For me Russo made the book.
Looking around I’m definitely in the minority of not loving this book, so if this has been on you radar take my thoughts with a dose of salt and give it a try.
RATING:
Story: 3 hearts
Narration: 4.5 hearts
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