Angelology - Urban Fantasy Book Review

Angelology
by Danielle Trussoni
Viking, March 2010

A young nun named Evangeline stumbles across a letter written to the mother superior of St Rose Convent in 1944. It concerns a dangerous and mysterious expedition financed by Mrs Abigail Rockefeller

Meanwhile Percival Grigori has asked the young scholar Verlaine to find out about the same Mrs Rockefeller and any connection she may have had to St Rose Convent in NY.

Percival is one of the Nephilim, descendants of the Watchers, fallen angels who defied God and took human wives. While the Watchers were cast into a pit of darkness their offspring, throughout the centuries, walked the earth waging a war against humanity by instigating conflicts and taking control of earthly affairs through breeding with the most influential families.

One secret group of humans, the Angelologists, actively fight these creatures who, at their purist, have a physical beauty that echoes their angel ancestry. Their vicious nature belies that beauty. It should come as no surprise that the Nephilim were instrumental in the rise of Nazism. Yet it was during the second world war that the expedition. paid for by Mrs Rockefeller, led to the finding of an instrument that could end the struggle against this evil.

When Trussoni concentrates her attention on the angelologists and the mysteries they have uncovered about the fallen as well as the dangers they must face to unearth these findings, she is at her best. Her richly imagined history of the Watchers and Nephilim is riveting. Although readers of Urban Fantasy will not be strangers to the concept of fallen angels and their progeny, I cannot think of another novel that goes into the depth of their history and its consequences.

The ending of of Angelology leaves no doubt there will be a sequel. My hope is that the author will revisit the Watchers who were last seen pleading for their freedom.

I have some quibbles about certain scenarios, but they are minor and I enjoyed this book tremendously. I stayed up late many nights, fighting sleep because I had to know what happened next.

Patricia Altner is a freelance writer, researcher, and bibliographer with a special interest in vampire and paranormal fiction. Her book Vampire Readings: An Annotated Bibliography was published by Scarecrow Press in 1998. She does private research on vampire and paranormal literature.

Visit Patricia's Vampire Notes for the latest information on vampire and paranormal literature.