E-Galley Review: Rage and Ruin (The Harbinger #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Rage and Ruin by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Series: The Harbinger #2
Published by Inkyard Press on June 9, 2020
Genres: YA Paranormal Romance
Pages: 576
Source: Edelweiss
Format: E-galley
My Rating:
Goodreads
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Barnes & Noble

Synopsis:

Dangerous secrets and forbidden desires lead to shocking consequences… Don’t miss book two of the fantastical Harbinger trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout.

“Jennifer L. Armentrout’s intoxicating new fantasy is her best yet!” — New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter on Storm and Fury 

A half human, half angel and her bonded gargoyle protector must work with demons to stop the apocalypse while avoiding falling in love. The Harbinger is coming…but who or what is it? All of humankind may fall if Trinity and Zayne can’t win the race against time as dark forces gather.

As tensions rise, they must stay close together and patrol the DC streets at night, seeking signs of the Harbinger, an entity that is killing Wardens and demons with no seeming rhyme or reason. Forbidden to be with each other, Zayne and Trinity fight their feelings and turn to unusual sources for help—the demon Roth and his cohorts. But as deaths pile up and they uncover a sinister plot involving the local high school and endangering someone dear to Zayne, Trin realizes she is being led…herded…played for some unknown end. As anger builds and feelings spiral out of control, it becomes clear that rage may be the ruin of them all.

My Review:

If you’ve followed me for long, you know that I love and devour anything and everything by Jennifer L. Armentrout, and yet there are still more in her long list that I haven’t read, even as she continues to put out new books. You will also know that while I seem to be able to keep up with all the new books my favorite authors put out, if I haven’t read their whole backlist, I don’t always get to all of those as soon as I’d like. For both books in this series that is a spinoff to my first JLA book boyfriend, Roth’s series, The Dark Elements, I’ve not been fortunate enough to get physical ARCs, and have read them both as e-galleys, and then just buy the finished hard cover for my shelf after it comes out. Now, it was about this time last year when I was reading the first book in this series, Storm and Fury, during my Sumner summer school experience where I was in charge of the students doing the sustained silent reading, meaning I got to sit and read too.

While I will always be Team Roth over Team Zayne, even with this book, the feelings between Trinity and Zayne are strong, and they must decide whether their feelings are worth going against the rules as they are laid out. But I fell on Trinity’s side a lot of the time, even though when things are actually discussed, it seems maybe Zayne wasn’t being as much of a jerk as he seemed. I enjoyed some connections to characters from The Dark Elements series that were friends of Layla, and also just loved all the parts that Roth was in. The author did a really good job of making me cry at several points in this one, and kept the obstacles coming at just the right times, making it seem as if our heroes may never reach what they need to do in order to win.

There were also great connections, to me anyway, to the tv show Supernatural. As I pointed out in my review to the first book a slight difference in a movie reference, there was one in this as well. When Trinity says no kissing, like in the movie Pretty Woman, I think it was actually no kissing on the mouth from the movie, not all kissing was bad.

But I have to say that ending! I knew there was another book coming, so it would have an ending that had to have loose ends, but this time, wow, even what I thought were the loose ends were frayed and really caused me to gasp in surprise at the very end. Now, I have to wait a whole year? Can I make it? I don’t know!

I also want to make a note about the condition that Trinity has, Retinitis Pigmentosa, the same condition that the author, Jennifer L. Armentrout has. Learning about it is definitely something that means a lot that she is sharing her own experiences and creating a character with the same diagnosis.