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When
there’s a war in Heaven, on which side will you stand?
The
Prison of the Angels is the new paranormal erotic romance by Janine Ashbless,
and is the final novel in the Book of the Watchers trilogy.
“I
thought I was a good girl. I thought that no matter what others did for my
sake, I could stay innocent. I thought that as long as I acted out of love, I’d
be blameless.
I was
wrong, wasn’t I?”
Janine
Ashbless is back with the third and final instalment of her Book of the
Watchers trilogy, The Prison of the Angels. Unafraid to tackle the more complex
issues surrounding good and evil in mainstream religion, Janine has created a
thought-provoking and immersive trilogy which sets a new standard for
paranormal erotic romance. The first in the series, Cover Him With Darkness,
was released in 2014 by Cleis Press and received outstanding reviews. It was
followed in March 2017 by In Bonds of the Earth, and finally The Prison of the
Angels on 1st December 2017, both published by Sinful Press.
Blurb:
Milja
Petak’s world has fallen apart.
Her
lover, the fallen angel Azazel, has cast her aside in rage and disgust. The
other contender for her heart, the Catholic priest Egan Kansky, was surrendered
back into the hands of the shadowy Vatican organization, Vidimus, after
sustaining life-threatening injuries.
She has
killed and she has betrayed. She is alone, homeless, and at the end of her
tether - torn apart by guilt and the love she has lost.
But
neither Heaven nor its terrifying representatives on Earth have finished with
Milja.
Both
her lovers need her in order to further their very different plans, and both
passionately need her, though they may try to deny it.
Milja
is once again forced into a series of choices as she uncovers the secrets
Heaven has been guarding for centuries. But this time it is not just her heart
at stake, or even the fate of a fallen angel.
This
time, the choices she makes will change everything.
This
time it’s the End of the World.
The
Prison of the Angels is the third in the acclaimed Book of the Watchers
trilogy, following on from Cover Him with Darkness, and In Bonds of the Earth.
Excerpt:
The
cold water flashed like white fire over every inch of my skin. It burnt my
eyeballs and my lips and the inside of my throat, and beyond the white fire was
a darkness so immense that it swallowed me whole.
I fell
forever.
Something
grabbed my wrist. Something so hot that it boiled away the darkness, so that
there was suddenly light flashing in my eyes. I felt myself grabbed up bodily
and lifted. I felt heat against my lips, blowing fire into my frozen lungs. I
saw the wooden posts of a flight of steps, and then I pitched forward onto
hands and knees in the shallow snow, choking up pond-water. In front of my
blurred vision an inchoate swirl of darkness poured up the steps onto the lit
porch and then disappeared. Unseen, something slammed against the door, a knock
that made the house shake.
I was
on the ground beneath the back porch of John’s house, I realized, shuddering.
Mama. Oh
Mama. The thought seemed to come from nowhere.
Three
times the knock sounded, and on the third the door burst open—outward, onto the
porch—to reveal Egan in the lit room within; shaven, shirtless, and frozen
mid-lunge for what I could only assume was a weapon of some sort.
He
stared.
I tried
to cry out.
“Milja?”
Grabbing
his pistol he ran out barefoot onto the porch and looked around for enemies
that were not there. Then he clattered down and pulled me up into his arms. I
pressed my face to his neck and he carried me up the steps and over the
threshold—not like a bride, but like a child he could hold tight against his
torso, his wrists locked under my thighs. His skin blazed against mine. He
hefted me into the kitchen and propped my ass on the table in front of the
range.
“What
the hell?” he demanded in a low fierce voice, sweeping locks of sodden hair
back from my face. My hat seemed to have disappeared. “What happened, Milja?
What were you doing out there?”
“Ice. I
fell in the lake.” My jaw chattered. It was obvious I was telling the truth—I
was soaked from head to toe, and after clasping me so close he wasn’t much
drier himself.
“Feckssake,
woman!” he growled. “What the hell were you thinking of?” He shucked off my
coat, which lifted a sodden ton from my shoulders, then stooped to pull my
boots off; ice-water spilt all over the floor.
I tried
to strip off my gloves but my fingers weren’t capable of gripping anything.
“Come
here, come here,” he said softly from where he knelt at my feet, grabbing my
wrists and peeling away the useless gloves. He pressed my hands on either side
of his warm neck, holding them there. They must have felt like ice-blocks to
him, but he didn’t wince.
He
looked like a knight kneeling before his queen, I thought. I could feel his
pulse.
“I’ll
go get towels, Milja. Are you going to be okay a sec?”
I
nodded, though he probably couldn’t see it through the shuddering. He rose and
hurried off, leaving me with the radiant warmth of the stove. I thought I
should probably get the rest of my clothes off, but even after I struggled with
my fly zipper my jeans seemed determined to cling to my bum-cheeks.
I heard
the back door bang shut and I flinched.
Azazel?
Had he
been gathering himself to come get Egan? Was he the one who had saved me from
the black waters? Where was he now?
Egan
came back in carrying armfuls of towels. “Alright?”
“I’m
okay,” I told him, smiling through my shudders. He was still shirtless, and I
could see the faint Ethiopian scars on his arm and chest.
He
wrapped my hands one at a time in a towel, chaffed them dry, and then set them
deliberately against the hard, hot wall of his torso.
Oh God.
Then he
slipped all the buttons on my thick flannel shirt—the one I’d chosen this
morning precisely because it wasn’t provocative or distracting—and he only
slowed when he realized I was wearing just a bra-top underneath. My nipples
stood in shamefully hard points under the stretch cotton. I tried to wriggle
out of the long tartan sleeves of my shirt on my own, to spare his blushes, but
everything clung like a freezing cold second skin and he had to help.
The
shallow slash on my forearm wasn’t bleeding anymore, but each brush of his
fingers felt like hot coals.
My wet
garment made a slap as it struck the floor.
He
draped a towel around my shoulders and another over my head. He started rubbing
the water from my face and hair and scalp, his movements precise and gentle.
For long moments I was buried in a soft darkness. I reached out, blind, to put
my hands back on his bare ribs. I could feel his heart pounding beneath them,
like a beast pacing a cage.
I have
no idea when it all changed for him. When his grueling self-denial simply fell
apart, like a garment worn and washed until the fabric was weakened beyond all
use. All I knew was that he dropped the towel off my damp head, cupped my face
in both his hands and—absolutely without warning—kissed me.
The
Prison of the Angels is available to buy from all major online retailers
including:
Author
bio:
Janine
Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure. She
likes to write about magic and myth and mystery, dangerous power dynamics,
borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.
Buyer
beware! If you like dark romance and a hard-won Happily Ever After, try
"Cover Him with Darkness," "Heart of Flame," or "The
King's Viper." If you prefer challenging erotica, go for "Red Grow
the Roses" or "Named and Shamed" instead. All her other books
lie somewhere on the spectrum between.
Janine
has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000. She's also had numerous
short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance,
Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora's Cave among
others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology 'Geek Love'.
Born in
Wales, Janine now lives in the North of England with her husband and two
rescued greyhounds. She has worked as a cleaner, library assistant, computer
programmer, local government tree officer, and - for five years of muddy feet
and shouting - as a full-time costumed Viking. Janine loves goatee beards,
ancient ruins, minotaurs, trees, mummies, having her cake and eating it, and
holidaying in countries with really bad public sewerage.
Her work
has been described as:
"Hardcore
and literate" (Madeline Moore) and "Vivid and tempestuous and
dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love." (Portia Da Costa)
Author
Links:
Janine
Ashbless website: http://www.janineashbless.com/
Janine
Ashbless on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janineashbless
Sinful
Press website: https://www.sinfulpress.co.uk
Release
blitz organized by Writer Marketing
Services.
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