Angel City by Jon Steele, The
Angelus Trilogy #2
Paris, City of Light. Where there is light,
there are shadows
A new battle in the timeless war between good
and evil begins. A battle which could turn Paris into a dead zone. Jay Harper,
alone, must make a difference.
From the forbidden tunnels under Paris, to the
Cathar fortress at Montsegur, to the apparent safety of a small-town in
Washington State – a town that doesn’t exist on a map – Angel City is a strange
trip through the shadows where the creatures we call angels dwell.
Because the time of the prophecy is at hand…
Earlier this month I read the
first book in the Angelus Trilogy, The Watchers, and I was just awed by what
Jon Steele had put on paper. The Watchers was a powerful book written in a
superb manner that really blurred the lines between the natural and
supernatural. And lets not forget to mention the characters that you read about,
they were portrayed in an compelling manner. Angel City is the second book in
the Angelus Trilogy that will be released later this year in September by
Transworld Publishers.
Angel City starts off with
two pages dedicated to explaining several historical events or mentioning’s
like The Cathars and Montsegur. By briefly mentioning what these things meant
was cleverly done, since next you are reading about the year 1244 where these
terms are used. Already from The Watchers I learned that Jon Steele used
several historical landmarks and history in his story and continuing this in
Angel City was interesting to read about, since his usage of the angels is
closely linked to several of these places. It gave just this little bit more of
mystical feel to the story.
Like The Watchers where you
read a prologue set in the past, Angel City has the same feature, however the
places and linking them with the current situation is revealed much earlier on.
You can spot a few hints on early in the story that will encourage you to think
about what it all can mean. After the prologue you are switched to the current
situation, September 9th 2013 in Paris (Angel City takes place 3
years after the events of The Watchers). Where you follow one of the main
protagonist’s of the series, Jay Harper. Jay was already an important player in
the first book and proves his worth even more in Angel City. What you got to
read in the first book about his character, his amnesia and ultimately his
destiny was already quite worked out so I was wondering how his character would
be shown in the second book. And I’m pretty pleased, because not only is Jay
still not understanding everything about himself it is also that by Jay, Jon
Steele reveals more about the angels in his series. There is a nice glossary of
terms in the back of the book that recaps several terms that Jay uses. Jay has
two tasks in Angel City and the former is to save Paris from a doom scenario,
which is a shows a nice display of how determined Jay is to safe humankind and
also packs quite the cool action scenes, this really started off the book in a
right way. But later this first encounter turns out to be a small part of a
much bigger plan. A plan set into motion by a someone gone “rogue”… This is
where the second task of Jay comes into as he finds himself in a race to find
out who and also why the destruction of Paris was planned. In this second task
of Jay a lot of the “angelic ways” of life are revealed like how they travel
into the human bodies and back out again. Angels use bodies of the people on
Earth to carry out their tasks. And to keep their sanity at bay, once they are
finished their minds are wiped clean and only get “new thoughts” imprinted when
they enter a fresh body for a new task. It was nice to see that Jay can recall
certain events with flashbacks by mentioning of names or places. All the things
that I learned so far about the angelic powers added a bonus sci-fi feel to the
book with the lights flashing and all. Very cool.
A second character that you
already learned about in The Watcher was Katherine Taylor, who had quite the
turn around of events there. Now she lives, guarded by the Swiss Guard in a
remote village in Washington State, Grover’s Mill. And she has a kid. Max. Her
involvement in the main storyline isn’t that much early on in the book, but
only takes off once you reach the halfway mark. Instead you first get to see
her in her now “normal” life running her candleshop and taking care for her kid
Max. What you can still perceive from her character is that she is scarred from
the dealings in The Watchers. Katherine also drinks a lot of herbal tea’s which
I didn’t really had any thoughts about, but later on you learn that they were
there to help her with certain things. Now the guarding part is needed and it
actually turned out to be one of the major drives in the storyline together
with Max. Her storyline was a bit similar to The Watchers where you first
presume it might be a singular storyline but on the whole it neatly folds into
the major one.
There were also two new
important characters that you read about in Angel City, Astruc and his “helper”
Goose. These new additions proved to be important as they have a mind set of
their own, well mostly Astruc, as Goose mostly follows his orders. I especially
liked how Astruc was portrayed in the book. I’m not going to mention his plans
or what he is, but hands down he believes really give a new twist to the story.
The storyline of Angel City
is hard to described without revealing to much of the plot itself, but this
time you are taken to different places, from the remote village of Grover’s
Mill in America to Paris down to the catacombs. It very interesting to read
about how Jon Steele used all the historical landmarks to further enrich his
storyline. There are quite a few twists and turns riddled throughout the story
that kept my clustered at the pages. For me The Watchers was a character driven
book, Angel City has the same but also goes beyond this by shifting the focus
more and more on the environment of the series itself. I found this in
particular a good feature of the and showed that the story was taken further.
Angel City seamlessly build
on the foundation of it’s predecessor, thereby further enriching the story told
so far. It is these kind of sequels that I truly enjoy where authors are able
to take their current concept and raising the bar for themselves that much
higher, and surpassing it. Where The Watchers more or less introduced us to Jon
Steele unique concept of heaven and hell and angels, Angel City shows what all
in possible once the foundation has been laid down. The characters of the book
aren’t your average heroes, a feature that I have come to like. With angels it
is often that they are invincible but Jay isn’t that type of angel, and
Katherine either, especially with her past. But what they are though is neatly
portrayed in a strong and convincing manner. They are just as strong or even
stronger shown that in the first book. Especially now that you have a greater
focus on the environment as well. The ending of Angel City is a bit said and
left me a bit empty inside, it’s in the spur of the last moment of the book;
compelling, beautiful and sad. Jon Steele captured Katherine spot on, but
leaves the reader on a cliffhanger moment…