Lost Wages of Sin – Rosalie Stanton (4.5 Stars)

Lost Wages of Sin by Rosalie Stanton
Series: Sinners and Saints #1
Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform on 2011-10-18
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 188
Format: eBook
Goodreads

Sin’s work is never done…

Ava should know. For nearly two thousand years, she’s worked for Lucifer himself, infecting the heart of man with greed wherever she goes. She wasn’t prepared to fall in love, certainly not with an angel. And she definitely wasn’t ready to experience her first broken heart after her angel breaks things off in the form of a Dear Jane letter.

Now Ava has a problem. Lucifer believes she might have shared some of Hell’s secrets with her former lover, and her siblings face the possibility of being out of a job due to her indiscretion. Ava flees to the American South, hoping to slip off the radar and is met by a longtime friend, a vampire named Dante. Granted, Ava doesn’t know Dante has been in love with her for centuries, and doesn’t understand why he won’t leave her alone no matter what comes after her.

With Hell on her trail, Ava’s running short on friends. Meanwhile, she can’t ignore the suggestive looks Dante keeps sending her way. Something tells her it doesn’t take Hell to get things hot…

Ava has done the unthinkable by falling in love with an Angel. Greed personified, she one of Lucifer’s most deadly and secret weapons, one of the seven deadly Sins. When a Bishop has a crisis of faith, Lucifer sends along one of his big hitters (i.e. Ava) to try to tempt him over to the dark side. Unfortunately, Big J has done the same by sending Sebastian, a hot Guardian Angel, to try to protect his faith. Sebastian and Eva fall in a big way, but they know that their respective employers won’t allow them to be together. Ava hands in her 2 weeks’ notice to Lucifer, which he grudgingly accepts, because Sebastian is doing the same. She didn’t suspect that, supposedly higher being Sebastian, is a big spineless wimp.When faced with the true consequence of becoming one of the fallen, he begs forgiveness from God, and returns to the fold, leaving Ava high and dry.

Ava now has a massive problem. She no longer is guilty of falling in love with an inappropriate man and mating him, she is guilty of telling Hell’s secrets to a Guardian Angel. This carries the penalty of death, leaving her estranged from her siblings and fighting all of Hell for her life. Enter the delectable Dante, a Vampire that has been her go-to guy for 700 hundred years. He doesn’t know what Ava actually is, only that she isn’t purely demon, and that he needs to protect her. He travels across the country when he hears that she is trouble and does everything to protect her. In 700 years he has never wanted anyone more than her and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do everything to protect her from all of hell itself.

Wow wow wow…Dante is HOT! Now that’s out of the way let’s get on with the review: D

I was sent this e-book to review by the author. That hasn’t influenced the review in any way, but I’m so glad that she did. This book was a fabulous mixture of fantasy, erotica and comedy. The world building was fabulous, although the mythology gave a lot of knowledge to absorb. I love fantasy worlds that are built on Myth and Legend, but like every first book in a series, it’s harder to read than its successors will be as it takes time to get absorbed into this uber different world. In this reality, Heaven and Hell are active participators in the world at large. Both sets of minions reside mainly on their home turf, but they like to come down to Earth to try to interfere with the daily lives of the mere mortals around them. Ava and the rest of the Sins (we meet Lust and Envy also in this book), are Super-beings. Born from the imagination of a devout Christian and created in flesh by Lucifer himself, they do not follow the normal rules that govern the rest of demon-kind; they can enter even consecrated turf. When the Bishop has his little meltdown, Lucifer didn’t only send a Sin because he needed a big hitter, he sent a sin because said Bishop was in a church!

Dante and Ava are one hot little couple…when they finally get it on! They have both been attracted to each other for centuries, but neither will admit it to themselves or the other. Dante doesn’t like feeling so much for one person. She is the only female he has allowed into his life for an extended period, and he just doesn’t want to screw it all up. She is his best friend and he doesn’t want her to be another roll in the hay. She’s the challenge he never wanted, yet when he hears she is in trouble, and why, he drops everything to speed across the country toward her. Ava may not respond to him outwardly, yet she recognises how yummy he is. At one point she describes him as “a bit too perfect” but she knows his reputation and won’t give her virginity to just anybody.(Side note here- The author describes all Vampires as good looking and states that it is a bit like natural selection, as the more handsome a Vamp the more neck he gets. I was hooked, but then got to wondering how this would be the case unless vampirism directly altered the genes in some way?) Considering that she is one of the devils ultimate weapons, she had a serious amount of personal beliefs and morals (I liked that this was a job to her, not a way of life). Dante had gone a long way to proving that he could be trusted with her secrets; he was her only constant in life. Trusting him with her heart when she had witnessed all the broken ones he had following in his wake? He had to do a bit more than be a good friend! When he protects her from evil, stays with her so she isn’t alone, threatens a being straight from the mouth of hell to protect her and refuses to allow her to surrender to her fate? Getting there 😀

Overall, I loved this book. It was funny in quite a buffy-esque way, the pace was high and the mythology had a twist which was very creative. I loved the characters; from the romantic interests to the sisters they were all likeable, yet flawed characters that kept my interest and made me want more (I cannot wait to meet the male Sin’s). I enjoyed the twists and turns that kept me guessing and the thought of Lucifer being a surrogate father was quite fun (although he sounds hot!). The sex scenes were smoking hot, Dante is VERY good at what he does, and I have to say they made my palms a little sweaty 🙂 There were some parts where it felt there was a little too much telling rather than showing, but for the majority the writing was fabulous.

A series I will be continuing so I recommend you pick it up too.