“This debut, the first novel in a trilogy, is achingly romantic, terrifying, and filled with blistering action.
When seventeen-year-old Ellie starts seeing reapers – monstrous creatures who devour humans and send their souls to Hell – she finds herself on the front lines of a supernatural war between archangels and the Fallen and faced with the possible destruction of her soul.
A mysterious boy named Will reveals she is the reincarnation of an ancient warrior, the only one capable of wielding swords of angelfire to fight the reapers, and he is an immortal sworn to protect her in battle. Now that Ellie’s powers have been awakened, a powerful reaper called Bastian has come forward to challenge her. He has employed a fierce assassin to eliminate her – an assassin who has already killed her once.
While balancing her dwindling social life and reaper-hunting duties, she and Will discover Bastian is searching for a dormant creature believed to be a true soul reaper. Bastian plans to use this weapon to ignite the End of Days and to destroy Ellie’s soul, ending her rebirth cycle forever. Now, she must face an army of Bastian’s most frightening reapers, prevent the soul reaper from consuming her soul, and uncover the secrets of her past lives – including truths that may be too frightening to remember.” — Description from GoodReads
Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton was one of the books I was most looking forward to this year. On its release day last month, I went to the bookstore and bought a copy, dying to dig into it as soon as I got home.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I got home and found *another* hardcover copy (this one courtesy of HarperTeen) on my doorstep. They must have read my mind, right?
I quickly dived into the pages, anxious to live Ellie’s story. The opening scene with Ellie staring out the window, bored in her economics class, was just great. I could totally relate to that, and it felt like it was written by the student who once sat in that chair.
A lot of the story felt like it was written from personal experience — especially the scenes between Ellie and her friends. I could picture the group of friends going to Movie Night and everything…just like any other normal high school.
The mythology of the Preliator and Guardians and Archangels and Reapers was really interesting and original. It was really well-developed and had a lot of depth.
I have to admit, though, that I struggled through this book. Many of the flashback scenes felt drawn-out and had a LOT of description. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I didn’t feel pulled through the story. I had to compel myself to keep reading at times.
I really enjoyed the connection and relationship between Will and Ellie. Their history was so interesting. You’ve got to love the forbidden love angle. And it was refreshing that there wasn’t really a “love triangle” — Ellie was pretty set in her attraction to Will. We’ll see how that plays out in the next two books.
All-in-all, this was an interesting story with lots of details and great mythology. Oh, and lots and lots of action.
I’d definitely recommend it to action-loving, mythology-loving readers.
Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton is available from Amazon.
**Disclaimer** A hardcover copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher, HarperTeen. It did not affect my review in any way.
Leave a Reply