Reviewed by Anabela.m
TITLE: Edge Lines
SERIES: Fallen Messengers Book 3
AUTHOR: Ava Marie Salinger
PUBLISHER: Silver Orb Publishing
LENGTH: 268 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 18, 2022
BLURB:
The Gods have come to San Francisco…
Cassius Black and Morgan King’s trip to Ivory Peaks to uncover clues about their past takes an unexpected turn when a rift materializes and war demons attack the capital. Having saved one world by the skin of their teeth, they return to Earth, only to find it has been rocked by ominous quakes bearing a close resemblance to the phenomenon that nearly destroyed the Dryad kingdom.
After defeating demons that emerge from a crevasse in San Francisco, Cassius and Morgan rescue the Wild God Pan from the bottom of a rift with the help of Victor Sloan and the city’s otherwordly. But instead of thanking them, Pan makes a startling demand: rescue his lover and prevent the Spirit Realm from being destroyed, and he will reveal the truth about who Cassius and Morgan are.
Help comes from an unexpected source when a pair of Reapers visit the city and Cassius, Morgan, and Victor soon go hunting for a missing deity who may hold the key to saving all the realms. Can they free the immortals from their prisons and find the powerful artefact that can bend the mind and will of even a God? Or will the enemy who has long manipulated them from the shadows win this war and destroy everything they have come to care for?
Edge Lines is the third novel in the gay urban fantasy romance series Fallen Messengers. If you like your paranormal adventures full of action, magic, snark, and a host of steamy angels and demons, then you’re not going to want to miss this enthralling, fun-filled ride!
REVIEW:
Edge Lines is the third installment in the ongoing Fallen Messengers series, which should definitely be read in order. The book picks up a few weeks after the events in Spellbound and doing a summery of my own of the story would be useless, because the blurb does that perfectly.
In some ways, Edge Lines is the best of the series so far. I was already awed by the author’s world building and storytelling, and I felt like Ava Marie Salinger managed to only improve her skills with each new book. Undoubtedly she has an impressive imagination and the artistry of converting it into words, with descriptions that are vivid and detailed. The battle scenes in particular are amazingly cinematic, full of tension and thrilling. Another thing the author is proficient in is creating a multitude of diverse and interesting characters. They all add color and entertainment to the story, yet sometimes, such a vast cast of people has the downside of making it difficult to keep track of who’s who. It’s confusing at times, especially considering the choice to often refer to characters using their title or species, particularly when a group was involved and I couldn’t figure out which demon, angel or witch had the spotlight on.
Talking about characters, Cassius and Morgan are becoming stronger and stronger as a couple. Honestly, in the first book they didn’t convinced me. I was told their souls recognized one another and that before The Fall they were bonded. But, they didn’t remember their past selves and didn’t know anything about each other in the present, so their professed love wasn’t credible. In Edge Lines, though, after everything they’ve been together, their bond feels real. They’re sweet, funny and romantic, and even steamy when the danger relents enough to give them the chance to be intimate.
But, while I like them as characters and as a couple, there’s something that ruins the excitement for this series as a whole. The overall plotline is centered on a fight between good and evil, but it looks like it’s getting more and more about Cassius and Morgan accumulating powers and titles. In the first book Cassius was already the most feared angel and Morgan fairly powerful on his own, but each new confrontation with the mysterious villain’s minions means a new wondrous revelation about Cassius and Morgan. We found out they’re demigods, the Guardian of Light and Prince of Night respectively, The Awakener, and so on. They have plenty of allies and combatants on their side, all powerful in their own right, yet every clash with the dark demons ends with either Cassius or Morgan, or both being the ones that always, 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 bring in the win, discovering new things about themselves and acquiring new powers. It’s become a pattern that frankly turns the stories quite predicable, and knowing the outcome steals from the thrill of witnessing the battles.
That being said, this continues to be an engaging series. I’ll most definitely read the next installments, because I’m curious to see what epic trials are in store for the characters before they put an end to the threat to the world.
RATING: 
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