Wicked Road to Hell by Juliana Stone

Last year I got sucked into Juliana Stone’s Jaguar Warriors series and I loved it. I also met a character whose story begged to be told, but it wasn’t in the Jaguar Warriors. His story is the first book in a new series called The League of Guardians.

Sorcerer Declan O’Hara was dragged into hell in the previous series. He spent 6 months (of our time, who knows how long he was really down there) as a prisoner of an evil nasty woman named Lilith. She used him as her boy toy and slowly stripped pieces of his soul away. But Bill (the seraphim) rescued him from Lilith’s realm (and restored his soul) on the condition that Declan would join his League of Guardians. They keep the balance between good and evil. In fact some of their people are evil.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but Julian (from His Darkest Salvation (Jaguar Warriors, #3) and Declan’s friend who was dragged into hell with him) was such an ass after he was rescued, that I figured Declan would be just as much a jerk. But he wasn’t. he was a pretty good guy, actually. In continuing to fight the darkness inside him, and in fighting his own genetics (his father was the villain in the Jaguar Warriors series), I found Declan to be one of the best heroes I’ve read lately.

Vampire Ana DeLacrux was staked at the end of His Darkest Salvation (Jaguar Warriors, #3), but Bill meddled again and brought her back to life. Now she is guarding a teenage boy who is incredibly powerful, but untrained. Demons want him. The Seraphim want him. And Bill is keeping him in hiding. Until he sends Declan out on a mission that leads him to the boy. And the vampire guarding him.

Declan has been painfully in love with Ana deLacrux since the day he met her, so seeing her back from the dead is both wonderful and confusing. At first he doesn’t believe she’s real. Then he’s right pissed that she hasn’t told him she was alive. The two of them have some pretty hot moments, but Ana keeps pushing him away. She’s so drawn to him, and his blood, that she’s afraid she won’t be able to stop if she stays near him. But they’re thrust together in trying to figure out what this teenager has to do with the shifts in power they’ve been noticing. This book has a local werewolf pack introduced too, and I’m really intrigued as to where that plot is going. Ana and Declan face Lilith in hell, and they save the world…for now anyway.

There’s so much going on in this book, that at times it’s a bit overwhelming. I’d definitely recommend reading the Jaguar Warriors series first, or at least His Darkest Salvation (Jaguar Warriors, #3). There is also a prequel called Wrong Side of Hell (League of Guardians, #0.5) that I quite enjoyed, you can read my review here.

***ARC courtesy of edelweiss

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