I absolutely loved it. Brynna is such a unique character!
It's a rushing storm carrying you along. Twisting, far from simple, very compelling.
It thrilled me to the bones - and left my surprised at seeing last page of the book.

4/5 because as much as I liked it, I would not sit pouring over it again and again. ( )

This was an interesting premise that could be more intriguing in subsequent novels, but took quite a bit of world-building here to lay the groundwork. Don't be fooled by the cover art. The heroine of this novel isn't some streetsmart badass woman who has it all together and uses her special powers to fight crime. .... Well, she does do that, but she's also basically like a newborn. Brynna is a demon and has just landed in Chicago straight from hell. Normal, everyday things confuse her and she doesn't act like a human would act about anything. Everyday sounds and smells are foreign to her and the things that humans are consumed with and the things that trigger her emotions are all things that she needs to learn if she wants to hope to fit in.

Her first day on earth, she witnesses a gruesome murder and nonchalantly walks away. The blood and gore and people screaming don't seem odd to her at all. Naturally, this reaction draws the attention of a police detective who wants to find out more about Brynna.

Honestly, I could have done without any romance here. Not everything needs to include a love connection. The story is a different construction of the fallen angel/demon/devil trope and it's interesting. I'd be interested in reading the next novel in the series, but I don't think this series lasted for long. ( )

This was a slightly different take on a fallen angel needing redemption. The book starts just before the fallen angel, demon, left hell. We are shown a tiny bit about what it was like in a prologue then the book jumps right in at Chapter One within a few minutes of her arriving on Earth. The action begins there, too, as she is running for her life. We never quite find out how she got to the mortal plain but Navarro does a great job of presenting this nonhuman's first few days in Western Society.

Brynna is basically a sociopath at first. She knows (or remembers) nothing of love or friendship or selflessness. She does what makes sense for her at that moment. Even her quest, to gain redemption so she can reenter the kingdom Heaven, is based on selfish reasons. She isn't evil anymore in that she doesn't try to hurt anyone but it doesn't occur to her to protect, either. She has no emotion when someone is murdered in front of her, just considers the situation. She does try to catch the perpetrator but when she is blocked by a locked door she stops and moves on with her own business.

It's a process as she figures out how to function in this society and what is appropriate behavior and finally how to feel. This is a really important part of her redemption, learning to be human, learning to understand that her side of the war in Heaven was wrong for thinking God shouldn't hold these human closer to His heart than the angels.

The religion wasn't over the top at all, quite appropriate given the subject matter, but I did find myself thinking again about how the JudeoChristian faiths are so obsessed by the idea that we are so important and number one in the eyes of our ideas of our creator(s). Kind of egotistical, actually. But I digress.

I never quite feel that Brynna really is seeking to be redeemed. I never really see that she is sorry for what she did in Hell (she was not an innocent by any means and does remember it) or thatshe does good because it's the right thing to do. I do believe she has appropriate feelings eventually but I never really felt any deep emotion until the very very end. There is supposedly this connection between her and the love interest but I never felt it either. They were just words telling me what I should see but don't.

I do like the characters well enough and I think Navarro is good at making each a unique recognizable individual. The characters are multicultural and gender equal for the most part (but still no glbti folks). The world the author built works for me and is rife with possibilites.

Navarro has written a lot of Buffy comics and it shows. There is plenty of action and suspense and drama here and the pacing is great. The women are strong and complex and the men allow them to be. Brynna is special and really kick ass and she doesn't do dumb things, probably because she has little emotion. The men are strong, too, although the detective is appropriately but stupidly macho and does understandably do dumb things because he just doesn't get that he is useless against demons.

But there are a number of holes and major problems. Like they find a hit list and they never deal with it past the plot of the book. Hopefully it will be handled in the next book. At another point, the detectives find the scene of the crime for a missing person's case, and there is at least one major clue, but they say that it's nothing and one even asks, "What are we doing here?" Brynna also hides evidence that would solve the case from Eran and when he finds out he's mad for about two seconds then gets over it.

There are small things like in the beginning she sleeps behind a dumpster and is wearing the clothes she found and put on after climbing out of a marsh, two days ago, but no one notices that she stinks or suspects she doesn't have any other clothing, at least not at that point. Also, Eran gets a cell phone for her when he doesn't know her and has just met her and he signs up for a 2 year contract, not a prepay? She also won't eat "flesh" but fish is okay. UGH. Fish is flesh!

Okay, this is probably a dumb complaint but the hispanic names are all excellent, uncommon but believable, but Eran instead of Aaron? and she comes up with Brynna on the spot, a modern name with no meaning she mentions, but an appropriate last name? And a priest is Father Paul Murphy.' Really. No stereotyping there. Apparently no originality either.

So I'm torn. On the one hand I enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down but on the other, I just didn't care enough about the characters and I didn't quite get why they cared about each other so much. I think I would probably enjoy the next book but I am now drawn to it. That's unusual when I finish a book in a series. Usually, even if I didn't like it that much, I do really want to know what happens next. Here, whatever.

BUT there is a wonderful, believable kick ass dog so that brings the star rating from 2.5 to 3. Yes, I am easily pleased by dogs in books.

So I don't necessarily recommend it but I don't not recommend it either. Read someone else's review because this is probably no good to you at all.
( )

This was a slightly different take on a fallen angel needing redemption. The book starts just before the fallen angel, demon, left hell. We are shown a tiny bit about what it was like in a prologue then the book jumps right in at Chapter One within a few minutes of her arriving on Earth. The action begins there, too, as she is running for her life. We never quite find out how she got to the mortal plain but Navarro does a great job of presenting this nonhuman's first few days in Western Society.

Brynna is basically a sociopath at first. She knows (or remembers) nothing of love or friendship or selflessness. She does what makes sense for her at that moment. Even her quest, to gain redemption so she can reenter the kingdom Heaven, is based on selfish reasons. She isn't evil anymore in that she doesn't try to hurt anyone but it doesn't occur to her to protect, either. She has no emotion when someone is murdered in front of her, just considers the situation. She does try to catch the perpetrator but when she is blocked by a locked door she stops and moves on with her own business.

It's a process as she figures out how to function in this society and what is appropriate behavior and finally how to feel. This is a really important part of her redemption, learning to be human, learning to understand that her side of the war in Heaven was wrong for thinking God shouldn't hold these human closer to His heart than the angels.

The religion wasn't over the top at all, quite appropriate given the subject matter, but I did find myself thinking again about how the JudeoChristian faiths are so obsessed by the idea that we are so important and number one in the eyes of our ideas of our creator(s). Kind of egotistical, actually. But I digress.

I never quite feel that Brynna really is seeking to be redeemed. I never really see that she is sorry for what she did in Hell (she was not an innocent by any means and does remember it) or thatshe does good because it's the right thing to do. I do believe she has appropriate feelings eventually but I never really felt any deep emotion until the very very end. There is supposedly this connection between her and the love interest but I never felt it either. They were just words telling me what I should see but don't.

I do like the characters well enough and I think Navarro is good at making each a unique recognizable individual. The characters are multicultural and gender equal for the most part (but still no glbti folks). The world the author built works for me and is rife with possibilites.

Navarro has written a lot of Buffy comics and it shows. There is plenty of action and suspense and drama here and the pacing is great. The women are strong and complex and the men allow them to be. Brynna is special and really kick ass and she doesn't do dumb things, probably because she has little emotion. The men are strong, too, although the detective is appropriately but stupidly macho and does understandably do dumb things because he just doesn't get that he is useless against demons.

But there are a number of holes and major problems. Like they find a hit list and they never deal with it past the plot of the book. Hopefully it will be handled in the next book. At another point, the detectives find the scene of the crime for a missing person's case, and there is at least one major clue, but they say that it's nothing and one even asks, "What are we doing here?" Brynna also hides evidence that would solve the case from Eran and when he finds out he's mad for about two seconds then gets over it.

There are small things like in the beginning she sleeps behind a dumpster and is wearing the clothes she found and put on after climbing out of a marsh, two days ago, but no one notices that she stinks or suspects she doesn't have any other clothing, at least not at that point. Also, Eran gets a cell phone for her when he doesn't know her and has just met her and he signs up for a 2 year contract, not a prepay? She also won't eat "flesh" but fish is okay. UGH. Fish is flesh!

Okay, this is probably a dumb complaint but the hispanic names are all excellent, uncommon but believable, but Eran instead of Aaron? and she comes up with Brynna on the spot, a modern name with no meaning she mentions, but an appropriate last name? And a priest is Father Paul Murphy.' Really. No stereotyping there. Apparently no originality either.

So I'm torn. On the one hand I enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down but on the other, I just didn't care enough about the characters and I didn't quite get why they cared about each other so much. I think I would probably enjoy the next book but I am now drawn to it. That's unusual when I finish a book in a series. Usually, even if I didn't like it that much, I do really want to know what happens next. Here, whatever.

BUT there is a wonderful, believable kick ass dog so that brings the star rating from 2.5 to 3. Yes, I am easily pleased by dogs in books.

So I don't necessarily recommend it but I don't not recommend it either. Read someone else's review because this is probably no good to you at all.
( )

Before reading Highborn, I was familiar with Yvonne Navarro only as she had written a few of the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer novels. I had enjoyed her writing based on one of my favorite shows of all time (no small thing, that) and was definitely interested to see what she would do with characters and a world of her own creation.

Highborn was a deeper, more developed story than a lot of the urban fantasy coming out today. Brynna had a nice fish-out-of-water thing going for her that helped make her hardened demon personality understandable and humorous at times. Her character was the highlight of the novel, but almost equally enjoyable was the way the story always had a surprising wist just as things were starting to settle down. Every time it seemed like the story was wrapping up, something other, completely plausible, thing happened to continue the tale. Obviously, all those unread pages at the end of the book should have been my first clue, but it was so easy to get wrapped up in the story that I wouldn't even notice I was no where near the end.

I don't have much interest in reading about demons living in hell and because of this, Highborn's prologue made me wary of the story to come. Luckily, the prologue was short and gave just enough information for the reader to get an idea of Brynna's previous life without giving too much of that information up front. As the story progressed, we learned more about Brynna's experiences, but in bits and pieces as they related to the current plot progression. This did wonders for keeping me fully interested in the modern, Earth-based story.

I never go out of my way to read books about demons, angels, fallen angels or any of the other Heaven/Hell flavors, but I plan on doing just that with the Dark Redemption series. Brynna is a character that I need to follow, need to know more about and need to see how life works out for her. Highborn is a great book. ( )