Blood And Feathers by Lou Morgan
Dec. 25th, 2012 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”What’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘angel’?” asked Mallory.
Alice shrugged. “I don’t know … guns?”
Alice isn’t having the best of days – late for work, missed her bus and now she’s getting rained on – but it’s about to get worse.
The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act – or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever. That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory – a disgraced angel with a drinking problem he doesn’t want to fix – Alice will learn the truth about her own history … and why the angels want to send her to hell.
What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding – and can she trust either side?
When Alice comes home after a bad day at work, she’s not particularly interested in the two strange men sitting with her dad in the front room. But Gwyn and Mallory are interested in her. Gwyn is an Angel, Mallory an Earthbound (an Angel cast down to Earth for infractions) and they need her to join them in their war against the Fallen (Angels cast out of heaven) because Alice is half-Angel and the only person who can tip the balance in the war – for good or for evil. To do that though, Mallory (with the help of fellow Earthbound Vin) has to train her ready to send her into Hell itself.
But as Mallory learns more about herself, she also learns that the Angels have secrets and not all of them can be trusted ...
Lou Morgan’s debut fantasy novel is a fresh and modern take on the war between heaven and hell that plays with morality, keeps the action moving and ends with a great set-up for the second in the trilogy.
Alice took a while to grow on me and I did wish actually that the book had started a little earlier so that we get more of a sense of her life before Mallory and Gwyn’s arrival, not least because parts of it is relevant to what happens in the final quarter and it would have been nice to have had the build up before hand. However she has some great one-liners and I enjoyed the fact that she’s not cowed by the Angels or what they can do and she’s keen to get answers to her questions.
Mallory forms an interesting counterpoint to Alice. Self-hating, he drowns his guilt in alcohol and lives a shambolic life in a former church. His fractious relationship with the glacial, arrogant and ambitious Gwyn gives the book necessary friction and forms an interesting counterpoint to his friendlier relationship with Vin.
The book really comes alive during Alice’s descent into Hell. Morgan uses the concept of the circles of Hell, bringing them to life with a vivid and gruesome imagination. I particularly liked the coldest circle, which she gives a suitable chilling bite. There’s a great pace to the action and a suitably dramatic conclusion, which gives a great set-up to the next book in the trilogy, which I will definitely be reading.
The Verdict:
Lou Morgan’s debut fantasy novel is a fresh and modern take on the war between heaven and hell that plays with morality, keeps the action moving and ends with a great set-up for the second in the trilogy. There’s a great pace to the action and a suitably dramatic conclusion, which gives a great set-up to the next book in the trilogy, which I will definitely be reading.
Alice shrugged. “I don’t know … guns?”
Alice isn’t having the best of days – late for work, missed her bus and now she’s getting rained on – but it’s about to get worse.
The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act – or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever. That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory – a disgraced angel with a drinking problem he doesn’t want to fix – Alice will learn the truth about her own history … and why the angels want to send her to hell.
What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding – and can she trust either side?
When Alice comes home after a bad day at work, she’s not particularly interested in the two strange men sitting with her dad in the front room. But Gwyn and Mallory are interested in her. Gwyn is an Angel, Mallory an Earthbound (an Angel cast down to Earth for infractions) and they need her to join them in their war against the Fallen (Angels cast out of heaven) because Alice is half-Angel and the only person who can tip the balance in the war – for good or for evil. To do that though, Mallory (with the help of fellow Earthbound Vin) has to train her ready to send her into Hell itself.
But as Mallory learns more about herself, she also learns that the Angels have secrets and not all of them can be trusted ...
Lou Morgan’s debut fantasy novel is a fresh and modern take on the war between heaven and hell that plays with morality, keeps the action moving and ends with a great set-up for the second in the trilogy.
Alice took a while to grow on me and I did wish actually that the book had started a little earlier so that we get more of a sense of her life before Mallory and Gwyn’s arrival, not least because parts of it is relevant to what happens in the final quarter and it would have been nice to have had the build up before hand. However she has some great one-liners and I enjoyed the fact that she’s not cowed by the Angels or what they can do and she’s keen to get answers to her questions.
Mallory forms an interesting counterpoint to Alice. Self-hating, he drowns his guilt in alcohol and lives a shambolic life in a former church. His fractious relationship with the glacial, arrogant and ambitious Gwyn gives the book necessary friction and forms an interesting counterpoint to his friendlier relationship with Vin.
The book really comes alive during Alice’s descent into Hell. Morgan uses the concept of the circles of Hell, bringing them to life with a vivid and gruesome imagination. I particularly liked the coldest circle, which she gives a suitable chilling bite. There’s a great pace to the action and a suitably dramatic conclusion, which gives a great set-up to the next book in the trilogy, which I will definitely be reading.
The Verdict:
Lou Morgan’s debut fantasy novel is a fresh and modern take on the war between heaven and hell that plays with morality, keeps the action moving and ends with a great set-up for the second in the trilogy. There’s a great pace to the action and a suitably dramatic conclusion, which gives a great set-up to the next book in the trilogy, which I will definitely be reading.
