The Fallen Sky End of Days Edition
Fantasies, Short Stories, Anthologies, Paranormal Angel Romance
McKinley Books
Feb 24, 2023
Kindle
333
Amazon
For over two hundred years, Heaven and Earth have been at war. Humanity's last bastion, the walled kingdom of Almaladh, is protected from the angels by the beautiful and indomitable twin siblings Zoe and Mahla. A steamy romantic saga that begins with Zoe's reluctant journey into the desert as a sacrifice reveals the true nature of their arcane powers and embroils them in a conflict between the vengeful Seraphim and seductive Watchers that threatens to unravel the universe. The Fallen Sky is a smart and sensual post-apocalyptic fantasy from the creator of the Dreadful Desire women's erotica collection, containing all five original short stories and novellas spanning Almaladh's battle against the heavens.
THE FALLEN SKY #1: SPIRIT OF DESOLATION
Two hundred years after a devastating war against an alien adversary, the royal daughters of Almaladh use their powers to defend what's left of humanity. Now that power is fading and the day's come for Zoe, raised from birth as a human sacrifice, to journey into the desert and meet her fate. But not every sacrifice is of blood, and the destiny that awaits her is one of desire and self-discovery...
THE FALLEN SKY #2: ETERNAL AUTUMN
The war between humanity and the angels continues in this sequel to "Spirit of Desolation." When Zoe and Hiro lead a team to the ruins of Damascus to investigate a mysterious transmission, they discover an unearthly woman from Zoe's past, a monstrous new threat to the fabric of creation, and revelations about the sensual bond between Zoe and Almaladh's ancient guardian...
THE FALLEN SKY #3: HEAVENLY DAYS
The sequel to the Dreadful Desires fantasies "Spirit of Desolation" and "Eternal Autumn" arrives as the beautiful and lonely Queen Mahla awakens into an ordinary life in a world where the angel war never happened, under the seductive sway of an inhuman lover. But the past isn't undone so easily, and a devastating confrontation looms between Mahla and her mysterious paramour...
THE FALLEN SKY #4: THE FADED SKY
The torrid post-apocalyptic fantasy series The Fallen Sky builds to its conclusion in this parallel story to "Heavenly Days." While Almaladh continues its search for the missing Queen Mahla, Hiro's timid assistant Greta wrestles with a secret of her own and faces a dark temptation that will both reveal the truth about Heaven's centuries-long war against Earth and mark the beginning of its end...
THE FALLEN SKY #5: BABYLON IS FALLING
Almaladh is burning. The gates of Paradise have been smashed open. The last remnants of humanity face extinction at the hands of the heavenly host, led by the mad Nephilim that used to be Greta. And, somewhere on the far side of the world, a ravenous primordial darkness begins to stir... The battle to save an unraveling universe begins in the thrilling grand finale to the Fallen Sky pentalogy.
Review by Madison Davis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
The Fallen Sky is a collection of Short Stories that the author wrote and published on Smashwords.
The book contains five Short Stories, titled ‘Spirit of Desolation’, ‘Eternal Autumn’, ‘Heavenly Days’, ‘The Faded Sky’, and ‘Babylon is Falling’.
In Celia McKinley’s introduction, she warns about this book being strictly for adults, and she’s right. This isn’t a story for Young adults or New Adults… intimacy is described freely and openly. Also, the author admits that she has used her fantasy to turn good into nightmares and fallen angels into the ‘good guys’, which is part of why I left a three-star review.
The book begins promisingly, with Princess Zoe, in a post-apocalyptic world, sacrificing herself to save humanity, and the Kingdom of Almaladh, whose queen is Zoe’s sister Mahla. With the power they inherited from their family, they’ll try to protect their people from being slaughtered in a war between humans and the forces of Heaven, some of them ‘Nephilim’, who, in Celia’s book, have a nightmarish form.
And here exactly the story and its descriptions start to become awkward and to me, quite irritating. I applaud the author for the idea to switch good and evil’s looks at times. But when I read a scene of intimacy, desire, lust, and pure sex, I don’t want to read about several heads and tongues and tentacles. That simply goes too far. So, please, stay within the humanoid form, if you want me intrigued.
The story arch itself is a bit modest. The book contains five short stories, and the reader can exactly say, where the stories end and are picked up again. The change between the numerous encounters of fights, battles, or sexual nature can be a little confusing at times. It seems, good sleeps with evil, and the other way around, and the main characters seem to be intimate with everyone showing up.
I understand, this is a fantasy book, and erotic, lust and desire are the major part of the story. I’m aware that sometimes the author’s fantasy doesn’t align with my own, but in this case, I do have difficulties with one of the genres the book is listed. The Fallen Sky has nothing to do with ‘Romance’. It’s mainly a book of sex, lust, and desire with a bit of war.
I usually pick my favorite character from the books I read. It took me a long time to decide on one in this book. After nearly a day of consideration, finally I found her. And it’s not one of the main characters, neither Zoe nor Mahla, not even Hiro, who seems the most likable, but a bit boring person in this book. It also isn’t evil turned Greta, and I don’t spoil anything, since the author has published the book description of each short story herself and in book 5 that fact is mentioned.
My favorite character is Autumn. She’s intelligent, becomes very quickly the main support of the entire book, and she’s also beautiful, helpful, an Angel, and even a ‘normal’ one, she’s on the good side and she’s in love. Her character carrying the entire book over nearly two-thirds of the story is remarkable, and that earned the author an additional star.
Thank you so much for this review, and I’m glad you enjoyed Autumn’s character! She might be my favorite too, even if choosing between them all is a bit like choosing a favorite child. The criticisms are, I think, absolutely fair. This story began as an effort to write transgressive cosmic-horror erotica, and, even as it turned into a more traditional adventure, I kept revisiting that theme to try and make everyone happy (which is always a mistake). If I were writing it today from scratch, I’d probably toss out the Lovecraftian sex, give all the angels human form, and focus more on the romance than eroticism. But that undoubtedly would’ve made it a different sort of story, and even if it’s unlikely that I’ll try such a oddball fusion again, I’m glad to have had the chance to write and share this one. Thank you again!