 |
| Angelfire (Angelfire #1) Courtney Allison Moulton |
"This 2011 Indie Next Pick 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."
Rating:
This is by far the most action-packed book I’ve read! As soon as I stepped into the first chapter, I was turning page after page after page almost non-stop! And to think I had a ton of work to do. Ha! Ha!
On reading Angelfire, I instantly noticed how effortlessly creative this book is. The plot was well contemplated. The characters are striking and every scene is brutally narrated. Yes, brutally since readers will find Ellie, the protagonist, hacking and slashing every reaper on her track.
There’s never a dull moment with this book, each chapter provides either a ruthless ass-kicking scene or an interesting funny fragment of Ellie’s normal human life. Surely you’ll notice the clichés, there are a lot I’m telling you, but Moulton throws it right back at you with a smashingly ingenious twist that makes you forget the inanity. There are a bit of too much talk in some events, like when Ellie kept asking Will questions of this and that. It’s a bit ridiculous since it seems to be just a cynical way to inform the readers of the facts about the story, but not something one could not tolerate.
The characters are of course, lovable for me. Ellie is funny and has the curious, bubbly, and sometimes annoying spirit of a typical teenager. Will on the other hand is sooooo serious! If you’re looking for someone to ruin the fun, he’s your man! Ha! Ha! But despite that, he’s noble and loyal. He may be too fictional a character so it’s hard to think of him to be realistic and as someone you could relate to. Also, he seems to have been molded from the Final Fantasy series, he appeared to have Squall’s (FFVIII) mood and looks, and Cloud’s (FFVII) sword at hand.
The secondary characters and villains are also those that would intrigue readers. And they provided more flavor to the tale. There was a certain part that got me stuck on. When Ellie met her nemesis Bastian, she asked him where Cadan was. I don’t know if I just forgot he was mentioned or I hardly noticed him in the other chapters but I really think that was the first time he was revealed and there wasn’t anything describing his relationship with Bastian or Ellie before he came into picture, or even when he was already in picture. So, that’s a bit confusing to me.
Anyway, with all things considered, I really savored this book. Despite the flaws, I think this is a really great debut novel for Moulton. Hands down to her vivid creativity. I can’t wait for the next book!
