My soul to reap

With varying levels of reapers attacking, ice-cream-eating, loves-shopping Ellie is unprepared when her nightmares become, not only reality but years of memory. With the help of her mysterious Guardian, Will, she must find a way to enable her powers accessibility for the hunt of these terrible reapers. Along the way, Ellie confronts copious obstacles that prevent her from gaining the strength she's going to need for the ensuing battle to establish Lucifer's return in the Second War, the Apocalypse. Fighting with her swords, her Guardian by her side, Ellie believes that in order to keep her normal, stable life, she must to everything she can to keep a balance between both worlds. However, as she drifts away further and further from her friends, she knows that the inevitable is bound to happen when she gets all her memories back, the bad and the dreadful. But will there be time to gain enough knowledge of this new world she's always known with demonic reapers and archangels, in order to save all of humanity?

In Angelfire, Ellie is portrayed as this ancient bad ass that seems to be humanizing more and more every time she's reincarnated. I'm all for the kick-butt heroine persona, but Ellie she actually trying to avoid becoming someone she knows she can be, but will destroy her inside if she allows it. With chilling arch foes coming out of the Grim–a parallel dimension where reapers can be clearly seen–she fights to survive and control what little she can of her life. A motif in the book that I really enjoyed reading were the flashbacks into “The Preliator's” memory bank. It was thrilling to go through all the action that she got in her previous years as a warrior.

As an overall character, I understood what Ellie was going the through throughout the duration of the novel. She's constantly looking for any guidance provided that will lead her to a saner road in the pandemonium that outlines her existence. Will really seems like the complex, moody macho-man when he's introduced in the book, however, his underlying layers soon became clear as his bond with Ellie becomes ostensibly evident. And really, his depiction just adds to his brooding persona and the visual of a nice hot-bod; it never hurts to create a character like him, even though it has been done before. While Ellie is older than him originally, he acts as a mentor when trying to influence her memories, even if he keeps his secrets. Just one of those characters that love to drive you crazy; when Ellie wanted to slap him, so did I.

I think that Moulton did a wonderful job in creating the overall background to set Angelfire in. Everything truly was connected in a sense that it was titillating to follow along through the building of the angels history and Will's theory of why Lucifer really fell from Heaven. I would be excited to read future works by Moulton, and hopefully with less trashy best friends and more fight scenes.

Grade: B

LiLi

I really wanted to like this book, but alas....

What is going to sell this book will be its cover.

Angelfire reads like an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer minus the humor, spunk, personalities, and magic. Okay, I take it back. Ellie is no Buffy.
I really did not like Ellie or relate to her in anyway. She is the Slayer, er, I mean Preliator.
The fight scenes were not bad, if confusing in points, and the monsters seem original although interchangable. The book does not do a very good job of setting up the history of The End of Days. I really felt like the average reader, who has not read books like this before, would have to do some side research to really understand what was going on. Here's an unanswered question: Why are the “bad” angels trying to bring about the war?

The story may have been better from Will's POV. It might have been more effective with some flashbacks that explained things. It might have been better if Ellie seemed like she cared about something besides her brand new Audi. And what is up with that father? Is that set up for a sequel? I hate clues that don't lead anywhere, as opposed to clues that throw you off the track (red herrings). Clues that end up not meaning anything are sloppy. In case you missed it, the father has not been the same “for months”, he used to be a loving father but now calls Ellie a moron, and Will tells Ellie something “smells” wrong in her house when he comes over on Halloween and later that her father smells like blood.


I am just thankful that Ellie is not real, because if she really was our last defense between us and Armegeddon, we'd all be toast.