Blood and Feathers: Rebellion

Blood and Feathers: Rebellion by Lou Morgan, Blood and Feather #2

"This is a war. THE war. There is no stopping; no getting out. You're in this - just like the rest of us - to the end."

Driven out of hell and with nothing to lose, the Fallen wage open warfare against the angels on the streets. And they're winning.

As the balance tips towards the darkness, Alice - barely recovered from her own ordeal in hell and struggling to start over - once again finds herself in the eye of the storm. But with the chaos spreading and the Archangel Michael determined to destroy Lucifer whatever the cost, is the price simply too high? And what sacrifices will Alice and the angels have to make in order to pay it?

The Fallen will rise. Trust will be betrayed. And all hell breaks loose...

First off. Stop. And look at the cover. Yup. I know. Great stuff. Makes you want to read it straight away doesn't it? On to the book itself now.
Last year around the same time as now I read Lou Morgan’s debut: Blood and Feathers. From the first page onwards I just knew that Lou Morgan would be an author to watch out for. Blood and Feathers was a solid start into a new series and into the established genre of Urban Fantasy. A lot of cool stuff happened in this first book storywise, Angels, Fallen, angelic choirs and guns guns guns. Added to this was a great character cast with Alice, a human and several Angels in various degrees: Mallory, Vin and Michael. And to top it all off, Lou Morgan writing style is highly addictive, I finished Blood and Feathers in one go, Rebellion proved to be the same deal. It’s shame on you if you haven’t read these books yet, I highly advice you to do so now. asap.

Rebellion picks up directly after Blood and Feathers focusing again on the protagonist of the series Alice. Blood and Feathers left the story open after an intense battle between heaven and hell with The Fallen and their leader Lucifer breaking out of Hell. Opening in London, we see Alice doing her normal daily things, well.. maybe what has become normal for Alice. Alice has always felt drawn to Mallory but now that he has gone missing, Alice is finding that living for yourself, with your own savings is a lot harder. She is need of money and soon finds herself working as a receptionist for someone none other than the Angel of Death. This all is just the starting point to what happens in the story of Rebellion, it soon comes to show just what The Fallen have in store for the Angels and the whole world. Rebellion isn’t confined to the London area, the story starts in it but the majority of the book takes place in Mont Saint-Michel. Mont Saint-Michel, is a place that must be well known to a lot of people and if you know it’s history, using this place only added a whole lot of flavour to the story. Named after Michael itself, what better place is there to have your base of operations?

Like I already mentioned, the focus is still on Alice. In the first book she already went through quite a transformation and in Rebellion she keeps on developing even further. Alice was a strong protagonist, not afraid to give her own opinion as she see it, she even starts to argue with Archangels! Besides her fierce nature Alice also has a gift, quite a fiery one to say the least, that is currently mostly controlled by her emotions, when she gets angry it seems to flare up a lot. She is coming to understand and learn more and more about what her power actually is and how she can use it to its full potential. Besides Alice there were also a few other characters that you had got to learn in the first book. Mallory, Vin, Michael and a lot more. Most of them all make a reappearance in Rebellion and all for the better. To most of them you were briefly introduced, with a few facts and figure about each of them, what I liked most about what happened in Rebellion is that Lou Morgan took a lot of time and invested it in showing more and more of each of these secondary characters. I was especially pleased with the depth that was giving to Mallory’s character. He is pretty cool, with his nonchalance attitude and fast remarks and let’s not forget his two favourite colts but Lou Morgan gives Mallory a completely different, emotional side. Showing how the Mallory that we know became that Mallory, I hadn’t dared to guess that all this was behind his character. Just superb. Besides the recurring cast there are also a few new characters, both angelic and human. Like Adriel, The Angel of Death, where Alice suddenly finds herself working for and Toby, a human who has an eye for Alice but doesn’t have a clue what is behind Alice’s character.  

All of the characters that you get acquainted to all feel complete whole and their actions are easily relatable to. All this is held together and further bolstered by the way that Lou Morgan writes her story. The dialogues that feature between the different characters are fast paced, natural and features a lot of witty and snappy remarks that further encourages a certain flow in the story. There is a great focus on the characters and how they act with or against each other, the best thing here is that Lou Morgan doesn’t sacrifice the world building to achieve this. In between the dialogues and intense battles that feature in Rebellion there is enough time invested to create a dynamic and energized world.  In terms of characters building, development and the world itself Rebellion is just spot on A+ material.

OK now for one of the best things that Rebellion offers. Action. Its chockfull of it. When you think you just had seen the fight wind down, BAM another one and another one. Now you might say, isn’t it all the same? Well no. Each time when a confrontation between The Fallen and the Angels occur there is this action reaction thing happening. One party looses and has to rethink their strategy. This really kept everything tight and interesting. There are also a few things happening off scene and it come to show that The Fallen are a lot more sneakier than Michael had first thought. Added to this is that the battles that you see aren’t only full frontal assaults. Due to various choices made by different characters there are new alliances forged and old ones broken, keeping you on the edge of your seat guessing what the h... will happen next! When the action does go down its in full angelic raiment think fiery swords, lighting and not to forget Mallory and his trusted side arms. This is really the type of action that you want to read in such a book and genre wise itself. 

If you had thought Blood and Feathers to be a great book, be sure to read Rebellion. It has everything it predecessor had but much much more. Rebellion is so fiery it'll singe the hairs on your arms! In terms of sequels this is what you want to read as a second book in a series. Lou Morgan never falters, never disappoints and never writes a boring thing. This is what is called taking your story to the next level. From the characters that make reappearance to the new characters there is a great amount of development going on. All for the better, learning more about the existing characters and getting acquainted with a lot more. In terms of places visited, starting up in London and then making the transition to the iconic part of Mont Saint-Michel was a very wise and if I may say so brilliant decision, this places added bucket loads of extra flavour to the story. And lastly the action, it’s just awesome, its dark, fast paced down right in your face take it or leave it. I know you will love it. 

If I have to be honest, I want to see this series being translated to the big screen!  Like I said when I read the first book Blood and Feathers, Lou Morgan is an author to watch out for, and she again proves it double-time. You don’t want to be missing out on these books. I hope be far this isn’t the last thing we have seen from her, she is definitely taking over the Urban Fantasy genre with a fiery storm.