Title: Angelfire
Author: Courtney Allison Moulton [website] [twitter] [facebook]
Genre: Paranormal
Publisher: Harper Teen
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher (via Net Galley)
Parental Advisory: violence, death, reincarnation
Teachable Moments: teamwork, loyalty, good vs. evil

“I held both of my arms out and willed weapons into my open palms.  The twin Khopesh swords appeared out of nothing in a flash of shimmering light.  The curving silver blades glinted brightly.  I glanced over at Will. I could now see intricate black tattoos twisting out from beneath his shirt all the way down his right arm to his knuckles.  I remembered the beautiful symbols woven into the spiraling design, because I’d seen them before with different eyes, in another time.”

Summary (from the publisher):
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.

Opinion:
Angelfire is a must read for fans of paranormal fiction.  Filled with creepy beasts and manipulations of Angel lore readers will no doubt get their fix of action, intrigue and even a bit of romance to boot.

A story set primarily at night I had no difficulty visualizing Ellie’s surroundings.  Not only that but the feeling of anticipation and danger had, at times, butterflies rumbling in my tummy. Though one would expect a more shiny happy sort of vibe from Ellie’s suburban upper middle class lifestyle there is little about the setting (or the story for that matter) that is sunshine and rainbows.  This fed perfectly into the plot of the book, making emotions and actions all the more heightened and dire.

Speaking of plot, I quite enjoyed the story.  I won’t get into the finer details (you can read a summary above) but I liked that the story had focus and was evenly told.  The bulk was about Ellie’s journey — realizing who she truly is and what she can do, struggling to remember her past lives and waking up to the love she has for Will.

As is the case with many books I read, even though I like the overall story there can be a few pieces I could do without.  With Angelfire I thought the number of fight scenes was too high for my liking.  I understood the necessity of having them and what the point was — Ellie was remembering her past lives as well as protecting the world from monsters — but I could have done without so much of it.  I thought the point still could have been made with a few less battles.

Also, I’m not quite sure what the true point of Ellie’s dad loathing her so much was.  Did he have a feeling that she wasn’t really his child (a la the reincarnation/angel thing)?  He was quite aggressive in his distaste for his daughter with no in depth explanation.  I kept waiting to find out what the reason was behind it (outside of his being a source of angst for the story) but I never felt the satisfaction of getting one.

Opposing those two dislikes I quite enjoyed that Ellie had a close knit group of friends.   In particular, her BFF stood by her and supported her without questions.  Despite the random and strange things that started to seep into their lives she didn’t run at the first sign of trouble.  She actually embraced it and continued to reach out to Ellie in an attempt to keep her in their lives.  This part of the story not only showed Ellie’s human side but it went a long way in exhibiting the struggle she was having with trying to be a normal teen while coming into her own as a hunter.

Secondary to that was the romantic element between Ellie and Will.  What worked really well for me here is the lack of focus on it.  Sure, they were attracted to each other for obvious reasons but at it’s roots this was not a romantic story so having only small sections dedicated to it felt right.   I will say, however, that Will holding back what he new about her past lives (and their relationship in them) for so long got old.  There didn’t seem to be any critical reason behind (it wasn’t a safety issue or some such thing) to keeping her in the dark.  Much like the issue I had with her father’s behavior, this seemed to be there more for the purposes of creating tension and angst.  Not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself it just lingered out there longer than I liked.

Moulton did a fantastic job of building Ellie’s story (and back story).  Reliant on the concept of reincarnation I liked that I was following the same path with Ellie as she struggled to remember bits and pieces of her past life.  Furthermore, the realizations she came to were paced well.  I didn’t ever feel like I was waiting too long or moving too fast, which in a story that relies heavily on revelations is a good thing!

Infused with Angel mythology the overarching story is interesting and takes quite a few twists and turns.  It’s certainly action-packed so the potential for boredom is minimized.  Despite the issues I had with the extra fight scenes and weird daddy behavior Angelfire was a quick read, there was plenty of movement and plot turns to keep me on my toes and wanting to see what happened next.