In book 3 of the trilogy, the archangel Raphael, who has already been somewhat diminished by his involvement with mortals, in particular the now deceased Damiano, is stripped of his wings and powers by his brother Lucifer, in return for releasing the Finnish witch Saara from Lucifer's torments. He is then sold into slavery in Moorish Spain and has to gradually come to terms with his new condition. This is only possible with the somewhat bullying help of a Berber woman, Djoura, who is a fellow slave but refusing to be cowed.

The situation is made more tricky because Raphael has been sold to a Arab trader who only deals in women and eunuchs, so Djoura tries to conceal the fact that Raphael is not a eunuch, getting little co-operation from him since he fails to understand the danger in which this places him or that the least punishment if found out will be castration. Djoura manages to engineer that they be sold together, but one of their new master's pregnant wives is very taken with Raphael and takes all kinds of liberties with him in the mistaken belief that he is not 'entire'.

Meanwhile Saara joins forces with Gaspare, Damiano's former manager and sort-of friend, helped by occasional appearances by Damiano's spirit - who is also giving Raphael moral support, but due to his ephemeral nature cannot tell them where Raphael is held prisoner. They launch an assault on Lucifer's lair to find out, and meet a black dragon - which is obviously the title character from MacAvoy's first published novel, Tea with the Black Dragon. The perils for both sets of characters escalate and the suspense is provided by the looming peril to the former archangel.

As before, the book is beautifully written, there are philosophical conversations, a burgeoning romance - this time, between Raphael and Djoura - and occasionally a lot of action, especially around Saara's team in their battles with Lucifer. The trilogy is eventually brought to a tidy finale, with a postscript which suggests that, despite Damiano's early death and lack of descendants, his legacy lives on via his prickly friend Gaspare and Gaspare's sister's grandchild - the same sister for whom Damiano sacrificed himself. That is the best and most touching part of the story, although I found the rest more interesting than volume 2 of the trilogy - partly because of the Black Dragon, who is by far the best character, but also the proud and independent Djoura. Hence a 3-star rating. ( )

I've let this review roll around in my head for a bit as I absorbed what it meant to me. This book was a hard read because it explored evil, both deliberate and casual. It explored love and responsibility as did the first two books in the series. It also looked at what it means to be apart from God, to not be able to hear Him in your life, to be separated from the music of heaven. Those are heavy themes, but this book handled them well.

Sadly the Kindle version handled the transcription of the text less than perfectly. The most ubiquitous error was scanning "li" and rendering it as "U". This "lip" became "Up," "litter" became "utter," and so forth. These were jarring. I'm not going to let a less than perfect version affect my ratings, however.

Again, if you enjoy philosophical fantasy, I think you'd like this series. You absolutely must start with Damiano, the first book in the series, to understand all that happens here. Don't get discouraged at the end of Damiano's Lute. There is joy to be found here. ( )

One of the best I've ever read. And I've read a lot. Macavoy's magic is in the little moments and characters that other authors treat as unimportant. More than a few lines of this work have stayed in my head the way the best poetry does. Quite a therapeutic book for those in the grip of delusion, depression, and the lies we let society tell us. ( )

Third of Damiano trilogy - unique fantasy series by Roberta MacAvoy ( )

Raphael falls for a trap set by his brother Lucifer and ends up stripped of his divinity. Sold as a slave in a Moorish slave market, he struggles with humanity while Gaspare and an ancient black dragon Saara try to find and help Raphael. A good read, and I'm pretty sure that the Black Dragon appears again in Tea with a Black Dragon. ( )