Night Falls Darkly by Kim Lenox

Archer, Lord Black, is a member of the Shadow Guard, an immortal tasked with the tracking down of degenerate souls and sending them to Tartarus for punishment, called Reclaiming. A year and a half ago, he rescued Elena Whitney, a young woman caught in the attack of one of these degenerate souls. Now, members of the Shadow Guard are not supposed to care about or save humans, but something in Elena caught at Archer's soul, and he made provisions to help her after wiping her mind of the attack.

Now, Elena is working as a nurse at a small charitable hospital near Whitechapel. Her guardian, Miss Hargeaves, is trying to marry her off, but Elena would far more like to remain unmarried and become a doctor helping the many poor and indigent in the city. However, the murder of prostitutes in the city has everyone running scared, and since the perpetrator, Jack the Ripper, is one of those degenerate souls, nearing a state called Transcension, where he could cross over into the Inner Realm, the place where good souls go upon death, and cause havoc there.

Archer returns to London to hunt Jack the Ripper, and is surprised to find Elena living in his house as his ward. Unbeknownst to him, when he told his secretary to take care of Elena, his secretary decided to set her up in a situation like that in the romance novel he was reading. Archer doesn't want to see Elena, because she stirs in him feelings that jeopardize the job he has come to do.

And he hasn't come alone. With him is Mark and Selene, two other Shadow Guardians. They once hunted together, but treachery in their past has made Archer unwilling to trust either of them with his life. Unfortunately, the growing power of the Ripper and his nearness to Transendence has given him such power that even an Amaranthine like Archer is almost no match for him. And worse, the Ripper seems to know who is hunting him, and has noted Archer's interest in his "ward". The Ripper views Elena as Archer's weakness, one which can be exploited by the Ripper.

Elena, meanwhile, is entranced with Archer, but at the same time, he makes her frustratingly angry. He doesn't seem to have any feelings for her or sense of duty towards her, and seems to run roughshod over her life to betroth her to a suitable man. But on the other hand, he also seems interested in her when he isn't shutting her out with a cold and aloof manner.

Elena has other worries. A prostitute named Lizzie, hurt by her keeper so badly that she must use crutches, has touched Elena's heart, and she gave Lizzie and her friend Catherine Eddowes some money to get them a safe bed for the night. When she finds out that Catherine Eddowes has become a victim of the Ripper, she fears for Lizzie as well and undertakes a dangerous mission to find her newfound friend in Whitechapel. But can she keep Lizzie safe from the Ripper without falling to the killer herself? And what is her true background, since she remembers very little of anything before the night that Archer saved her life? And can she trust anything she knows or feels when Archer alternately makes her throb with desire and pushes her away from him?

As Elena is kidnapped by the Ripper, all three Shadow Guardians will have to work together to save her, and bring down the man known as the Ripper, who may be only the first in a series of increasingly evil souls working for Transcension. By now, he has become so powerful that only the power of a Transcended Shadow Guardian will be powerful enough to Reclaim him. and if Archer goes that route, the other Shadow Guardians will have no point but to hunt him down and Reclaim his own soul. But how can Archer give himself up to evil and death when he and Elena have at last found love?

This was an interesting novel, and even though it involved Jack the Ripper (and let me tell you that I am getting a little tired of seeing Jack the Ripper as a villain in late Victorian Era stories. It's gotten to the point where he is ubiquitous- give it a rest, already, authors!), it wasn't extremely scary. Yes, the part where Jack the Ripper is on stage is scary, but the rest of the book wasn't scary and didn't impart the feeling of terror in the characters. It's something that is talked about, but the emotion wasn't there. It's more an intellectual discussion of the effects of the Ripper on society rather than letting you feel the emotions themselves.

I liked Elena as a heroine. She definitely embodies the true stereotype of the "New Woman" who was emerging at that point in time. Rather like Wilhelmina Murray in Dracula, who was an example of the same type, Elena stands up for herself and wants to meet life on her own terms, and feels that she doesn't really need a man. And the story proves her right, more or less. Since if Archer hadn't interfered with her acceptance to Medical College, she would have been accepted and done it on her own. She only fails to be accepted because of his interference, and she pays him back for his betrayal of her dreams by completely scotching his plan to marry her off.

While Archer is strong in physical matters, Elena is strong in willpower and emotions. She doesn't weep and wail when Archer blocks her from pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor, instead, she is hurt but bears up and later stings him in the tail with a bit of her own defiance.

I also liked that the novel played with our perceptions of Elena. Since she doesn't remember much of her past, it was possible that she was merely another girl from the East End, and that her upper-class manners and the few memories she did have were implanted by Archer when he rescued her. In comparing Elena and Lizzy, readers were allowed to wonder if Elena's true past was closer to Lizzie's than that of some gentlewoman. But in the end, our doubts are wiped out by the revelation of Elena's true background, and it's wonderful to read.

Archer, of course, is more cut from the stereotype of the dark, tormented hero. But he doesn't angst very much, so he was easier on the mind than some of the heroes that wail and moan and beat their breast about how they must be parted from the woman they love or have fallen in love because "theirs is the love which cannot be!" And when he finally does give into his feelings for Elena, you feel both happy and sad for him, because he's falling to save her and women like her, and while you know he loves her, he's going to have to die for it.

One of my problems with the novel, though, was the fate of Elena, which seemed to come out of left field more than a bit, and which made the suddenly happy ending seem to be almost tacked on. But aside from that, the novel isn't bad. I'll definitely mention it to my friends who enjoy paranormal historical romance, but with a caveat about the ending.