When her mistress is captured by the vampiric darkangel, Aeriel journeys across the terraformed lunar landscape to find a way to kill the monster -- even as she begins to question whether she really wants to destroy him. The Darkangel is a jumble of "Beauty and the Beast," Jane Eyre, and A Horse and His Boy. At it worst, its impersonal, fable-like tone reads like the boring sections of Patricia A. McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. At the book's best, though, the sparsely noted details come across as fabulously strange: Aeriel weaves robes for the darkangel's dessicated wives out of her emotions ("At first she could find only pity to spin for them -- a coarse, dull thread" [38]) and the darkangel alleviates his crushing boredom by torturing bats ("He had broken only one of its wings and was tossing it into the air to watch it flutter back to earth in a frantic spiral" [41]). Unfortunately, the bright bits are outweighed by the tedium, and the monster's inevitable transformation only made me miss the monster. ( )

A little dissapointing, but still a good read. It started out really slow and I was able to predict the ending by the middle, but the ending was still really well written and entertaining so I'll still be reading the rest of the series. ( )

How to make justice to a book that blew you away when you first read it?

Ariel is accompanying her mistress-Edouin up on the mountain to gather some flowers. Then suddenly Edouin is snatched and abducted by a winged creature.

Horrified she runs to tell everyone that Edouin has been kidnapped.

But no one believes her Except for a strange blind old woman who tells her the creature she saw was a vampyre and that he kidnapped Edouin to become his "wife" wich essentially means to steal her soul

Ariel decides if no one will try to save Edouin its up to her to do it.Even if she is a lowly slave girl.

So she goes up the mountain and waits for the vampyre to come back.

He does and takes her back to his castle to be handmaiden to his "wives" other young women he has taken.

They are little more than wraiths though after he has stolen their souls so Aeriel cant tell wich one of them is Eoduin.

To keep the vampyre complacent she begins to tell him tales and she also cares for his beasts,hideous creatures wich are kept starved to better guard his castle.

But she discovers the time is approaching when he needs to steal his final bride and take his wives souls to his mother.And then not only his wives will be lost...the last of the vampyres humanity will be destroyed too.

Aeriel doesnt know what she can do.Only that she has to do something


When I first found this book I was take away by the story.It didnt hurt either that the cover was done by the amazingKinuko Y. Craft



The author somehow manages to blend the story of Bluebeard,Beauty and the beast(altough the vampyre is beautiful,he is still a monster)and the storytelling of Szcherezade into one story.

And its a coming of age tale too.

At times its quite a surreal read,and I think the best comparision I could make is call its a surreal fairytale.

But I think the sheer originality of the story and the world its set in elevates the book from more more straightly written books.

Her "vampyre" is quite different from the norm too they have wings like angels

“They were jet, those wings, as deep as the sky, as black as Eoduin's hair—no, blacker, for they were dull, unoiled. They gave off no sheen in the light, no gleam to the eye. They drank up the light and diminished it: they were wings of pure shadow”

Thats a good example of the poetic and evocative prose.

I am glad that I found this one. It has been a re-read for me since the age of 14.

( )

Great for 80's nostalgia. At its best I was reminded of Labyrinth or The Neverending Story. Strange creatures. Quest of self-discovery. Magical.

But it's a double-edged sword, meaning it's also dated in some not so positive ways. Heroine wants to save the vampire icarus because he's super pretty. He decides she'd be an ok bride, only after she's gotten a tan from the desert, after everyone in the book has called her ugly a dozen times.

Cool read if you mind the date it was written. ( )

I was prepared to find this unbearably cheezy and hate every minute of it, but but it's weirdly charming!!! it has so many flavors of tossed in fairy tales, scharazade to narnia to beauty and the beast

but kind of also a lot of colorism and lack of agency from the protagonist? but also almost no male characters (what yeahhhhh!!)

anyway, teen age me would have LOVED THIS and read them all. but now I am old and picky. ( )