Out Now
The Prison of the Angels
The final Book of the Watchers
by Janine Ashbless
(@sinfulpress)
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
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