Dominion by Melody Manful ~ Review

Dominion (Guardian Angels #1)
By Melody Manful

Rating: 3.9/4

"I have a question. How does it feel to fall in love?" a little girl asked. Two of her front teeth were missing.
How the hell would I know?
Everyone was quiet, so knew I had to answer.
"Well," I cleared my throat and tried to remember all the cheesy sayings I had heard about falling in love. "It's unexplainable."

I looked at Abigail, which turned out to be a stupid decision because when my eyes met hers, I felt a stir of emotions in my chest. "And unexpected," I whispered to myself. 

Gideon’s a Grandinian angel; Tristan, a Guardian. Whilst the Guardian angels have the job of guiding and protecting the humans they’re assigned to, Grandinian’s try and harm as many as they can, keeping the balance of life…well, balanced.

Gideon and Tristan have avoided crossing paths…until now.

Gideon is given the biggest test of his destructive powers thus far: to harm Tristan'sènas (human he's assigned to). Tristan is notorious for his guarding abilities, just as much as Gideon is for his harming ones. Fuelled by his hatred of 'goody goody' Tristan, Gideon takes on the task gladly - feeling smug. This task is going to be piece of cake.

Until he meets Tristan's ènas, Abigail. 

A human, the daughter of a CIA agent and one of the most beautiful woman alive, charity helper and highschool student, Abigail has more facets than she lets other see - ignorant of the two angels that tail her, disguised as teenagers. To Abigail, Tristan's the kind, sweet friend who's always there to lend a hand... Gideon's the new student with a sharp tongue, devilish good looks and can be described in a single word.

Jerk.

Angels don't fall in love.

Gideon's meant to be harming Abigail. He's meant to be shooting fire at her, causing accidents, making her fall off balconies - not spending time with her at the library, laughing at her jokes and thinking about her 24/7. He's not going soft, is he? No! He's a Grandinian angel, for crying out loud - no way would he fall for a mere human, not even one as pretty as Abigail..

'And without as much as a breath, I did it - I allowed myself to fall.'

A tale of angels - good and bad - and how humans possess the strength to change the fate of the world...for better or for worse.

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This book was very entertaining.

My only criticism? The 2-D nature of the characters at the beginning of the story.

It made this book hard to get into. I felt as if the characters had little depth, Gideon's pyromaniac nature over-exaggerated to the point of it being ridiculous. None of the characters for me really began to shine until we got to the climax of the book...when Gideon starts to have conflicting feelings for Abigail.

Then we see the emotions bubbling underneath the surface of these characters - Abigail is brought to life in a whirl of colour, her childhood exposed as a sad and lonely. She forced to grow up too fast. The speech that she gives to her father when she's recovering from her ordeal is haunting. Every little girl wants her dad. Every girl wants a stage in her life where she can just be and not have to worry about fights, evil, being strong and how to shoot a gun. Unfortunately for Abigail, this was never an option for her. She had to protect her mother and be strong for her.

Tristan seems like your typical blonde and nice, puppy-lovin' dude until you receive the revelation that he feels the pain and death caused by Gideon, as well as the good in others. He is affected almost physically by it, which explains why he tries so hard to stop all of Gideon's attempts to destroy everything.

And as for Gideon...yeah. He's hot. I won't lie. But he's also the least deep of the characters. He blows stuff up, kills and is volatile. I understand that this is how he's meant to be. But it's annoying that he lets his hot and cold act affect Abigail. The scene where she's like 'If you leave now (a.k.a to go kill people) we're done!" I was just like:


Let him go. A girl should NEVER enter a relationship with a guy wanting to change him. It never ends well, because men are frankly like leopards and those kitties never change their spots. 

Overall it was a good read - but light. The cover was beautiful - the cliffhanger pure torment.