I’ve gotten to the point where I read pretty much everything Jeff Wheeler puts out, as soon as it’s released! This was no exception… and while all of his books feel quite similar to me, it’s the world-building and the magical details that keep me coming back. They’re atmospheric, and the characters are noble.
There was something very unusual about this one, in that it began with a retelling of the story in Genesis of the Garden of Eden and the fall of man–sort of. There was an apple, and a serpent, a man and a woman, but they weren’t named Adam and Eve. There was no one called “God,” nor anyone who might have been that character. The Queen Mother was there, but I’m unclear what role she played… it seems as if she was neither of them, but rather, Adam’s first wife? I’m waiting for her to be called Judith in a later book, though I can’t quite recall the details of that story either. I feel like it might be from an apocryphal book, though I’m not sure.
The story follows the Angel Sworn, whom I gather are somewhere between angels the way we think of them today, and humans–in this book, humans can choose to take a vow and become, essentially, angels. The Angel Sworn are mostly immortal, and (as Jesus said) they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they can still die. They also have a subtle type of magic that involves identification with a particular animal. If they merge with that animal, they can share its heightened senses, while still indwelling their own bodies.
Cimree is a young girl who is among the Angel Sworn, an apprentice, but she has yet to actually take the oath. She’s recruited by the Queen Mother (who seems like she might turn out to be an evil character, though all the Angel Sworn reverence her) to persuade a fallen Angel Sworn to undertake a quest, in order to help root out a predator invading their lands. The fallen angel, it turns out, was once the angel of death–but he forsook his vows, and took a human woman as a wife (which sounds an awful lot like the Nephilim in Genesis 6)…
I’m really quite amazed that Wheeler managed to take such an incredibly well-known story, central to the faiths of so many, and make something new and creative out of it, without even a hint of irreverence. That takes prodigious skill! Looking forward to the next installment.
My rating: ****1/2
Language: none
Sexual content: none
Violence: present but not gratuitous
Political content: none
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