NOTE FROM JEN: This post has some spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know what happens in this book. 

I’m currently reading Demon Angel by Meljean Brook. I’ll post an official review when I finish it (hopefully sometime next week). It’s a paranormal romance that focuses on Hugh and Lilith. Hugh is a Guardian (an angel-like creature sworn to protect men), while Lilith is a halfling demon (sworn to tempt and punish men). So, you can see why they’re at odds.

But Meljean does something in her book that I don’t recall any other romance author doing (SPOILER ALERT) — she has Hugh kill Lilith. He kills her! Dead. Shoves a long sword through her heart and buries her. And he thinks that she’s really dead. Not mostly dead. Really, truly, forever dead. Dead-dead.

I can’t remember this ever happening in any other romance that I’ve read. Oh sure, the hero will off the heroine so he can turn her into a vampire/werewolf/goddess, and they can be together forever. But he only kills her with the intention of bringing her back. Not Hugh. He kills Lilith to set her free.

And it shocked me. Especially since it was only around page 100. (Yeah, yeah, deep down, I figured that Lilith would get resurrected some way. But still, he killed her).

This is the first time in a long time that a romance has shocked me. And I started to wonder … why? Why is it so shocking? Because heroes don’t do things like that? Please. People drop like flies in Lee Child’s books. I don’t have a problem with his hero killing people. Heck, I expect him to dispatch bad guys in interesting ways.

I think it’s because the book is a romance, and I expect the hero to be, well, romantic. Shoving a sword through his beloved’s chest isn’t the typical definition of romantic. I wouldn’t be rushing to forgive a guy who killed me, no matter how much I loved him. But it made me want to read on to see how Meljean pulls off the rest of the book. And that’s what books should do — make you want to see how it all ends.

More to come later.

What about you? What’s the most shocking thing you’ve ever read in a romance (or any other book)? Inquiring minds want to know …