Beautiful and heartbroken Brielle Matthews shows up in her
old, small hometown of Stratus, Oregon after being gone for a while chasing her
dream of being a dancer/model at a fancy
art school in Portland. But tragedy hits
as the death of her good friend Ali, her friend at her Portland school, haunts
her and leaved her adrift and shaken and full of fear. Even being at home doesn’t help things and
the heaviness that is a part of her life now.
However in the midst of this oppressive darkness someone new has come to
town. His name is Jake, Jake Shield and
he keeps popping up everywhere- her calculus class, around town. She starts to feel as though she now has her
own bonafide stalker, albeit a really cute one.
As she gets to know
Jake a bit better and his story unfolds she finds that there is more to Jake
than meets the eye, especially surrounding his guardian Canaan. And as a whole
new Celestial world opens up to Brielle, she sees things in a whole new
way. However her heartbreaking past in
losing her mother at a young age coupled with the death of her best friend Ali
keeps her from really having a true faith and trust in God as frankly she doesn’t
trust Him based on what she sees He has or hasn’t done with those she has
loved. As she sees true forces of good
and evil battling it out through people and celestial beings she gains more
understanding and her relationship with Jake deepens.
There are a lot of different facets to this novel and a lot
of things about it that I thought were well done. The author explores that “why would a good
God let bad things happen?” question which many of us wrestle with, through Brielle’s’
past and her journey throughout the novel. I thought that the angels vs. demons portions
were suspenseful and the characters believable.
I definitely will continue to read more in this series as the author
gives great foreshadowing, along with a bit of a cliffhanger making the reader
really want to find out the future for these characters. Lastly I felt that Brielle’s journey was a
good one, well paced and you felt for her through the whole thing.
So while I will
definitely recommend this as a great YA read for teenagers, I really enjoyed it
as well, so a great read for all ages.
4 stars
I was given a free digital copy of this book through the
Booksneeze program in exchange for an honest, non-biased review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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