Heavenly Hell by Aria Williams Series: Heavenly Hell #1
Published by Self-published on 04/24/13
Format: eARC
Source: Provided as part of book tour
Goodreads
You'd think being stuck in the body of a beautiful seventeen year old girl forever would be a gift. But when you are fallen, it is more like a curse.Indiana was a beautiful angel, enjoying the perks of Heaven, until she was tricked by a demon to fall in love with him. She was forced to fall from Heaven and remain in her seventeen year old form, banished to Earth, for all of eternity. Now, unable to cope with her banishment, she is a seemingly normal seventeen year old girl by day, while she spends her nights punishing men for the wrongs they have committed against women. Although Indiana has lived on Earth for thousands of years, she recently settled into a small town, where she has finally been able to make some lasting friendships. When a handsome, mysterious boy comes to town, Indiana knows something is not right. He might end up her ally, or she might end up in the fight of her life.
Julie’s Review
I was really looking forward to reading Heavenly Hell because the description sounded cool and it was getting great reviews. Now I wonder if I read the same book as all these people giving it a 5 star rating. Overall, it was just okay. I think it had the idea of a good story, but did not deliver.
Let’s start with the positives: Indy is awesome! She is a kick-ass fallen angel who punishes bad men (i.e. rapists, men who abuse their wives, etc). By punishes, I mean she literally kicks the *bleep* out of them. Yes! Indy’s friends are pretty cool and they are all protective of each other in their little clique. I liked Connor and hope he gets out of friend zone someday. I also thought Nate’s character was an interesting idea. A demon hunter, what’s not to like? I did like that he was able to think for himself and not just do his job like an obedient servant. I definitely see more to this story line in the future books. I liked the alternating POV and getting to see things from Nate’s perspective.
Ok, moving on to the um, not so positives. I’m just going to assume that the errors I noticed were fixed when the final draft was published. I’m going to assume that even though this book tour is after publication date, we were provided with an earlier version for review. And even though the non-American spelling of the word “tyre” bothered me, I’m going to move on since that is a legitimate way of spelling it. That isn’t where I had issues with the book. The issues came up with the way it was written. To me, this book read more like a rough draft, kind of like an outline of some stuff that happens with plans to come back and add details, emotions, and character development. I found most of that missing. The dialogue was juvenile, and the characters were kind of flat. We do get more back story for the main characters Indy and Nate with the help of their alternating POV, but the secondary characters needed more. I also thought there was too much detail about the classes they were taking in the early parts of the book, especially since the later parts of the book seemed to skip forward. I expected Indy to have some maturity since she’s been around for all those years, but I found her very annoying, especially when speaking with other angels.
Aww it’s too bad that this one was such a disappointment for you. It sounds like a good read and I might give it a try but I’ll be really wary about some of the things you mentioned.
–Kimberly @ Turning the Pages