Paradox-The Angels Are Here
Title: Paradox – The Angels Are Here
Author: Patti Roberts
Format: Ebook
Published by Patti Roberts via Smashwords 2011
Genre: paranormal
ISBN: 0011154802
The definition of Paradox:
A seemingly illogical or self-contradictory statement or suggestion, that may, in fact, be very true.
There's something different about Grace's life…but she doesn't know it. For some reason she can't ever make a friend and the only one she does manage to make is someone she has to keep secret. Why? Because she is an angel that no one else can see.
Grace's father seems to know why Grace is different and why there are angels surrounding his precious daughter…but unfortunately he never gets the chance to tell Grace anything about her life…her destiny.
When Grace's time with her father is unexpectedly cut short and her life falls apart, the young girl doesn't wonder why she suddenly makes friends with the new girl next door. She doesn't wonder why the girl is wise beyond her years. She also doesn't realize that her father's death might not be an accident…
Years before Grace was born a great battle between the Gods raged. The God's were raging a battle over the humans and the humans were not winning. AbaddonGrigorian is searching for someone amongst the battle – a human – a girl. He believed that once he possessed this girl that he would Reign Supreme over everyone – including his brother, Cerberus, the current ruler of the city. But first he had to find her….
Let me start off by saying that the cover art and the book trailer to this book is fabulous. You can find the trailer here: Book Trailer
Paradox – The Angels Are Here is a novella. For those of you who aren't familiar with that term a novella is a short story. The epub book that I read was one hundred and fifteen pages. It is in this reviewers opinion that this story would have been better suited as a full length novel. Why? Because a full length novel has more time. More time to really get to the meat of the story and really give the reader something to grasp. While I really enjoyed the premise for the story I felt like it had only just begun. I realize that because this is a short story it was meant to be the beginning of a series of novellas with each one unfolding more of the plot. However, this book never really gave the readers any answers…it left us all questioning everything. To me, the reader has to understand some things in order to want to find out the rest.
The book started out with a woman (or angel?) named Juliette telling the reader a story about her life 900 years ago. Then we move to the preface about a young woman (not identified) listening to a story told by a stranger. A story that she realizes answers a lot of her questions would be answered by a missing girl. I am assuming that this missing girl is Grace – though it is never clarified. Then chapter one begins in the year of 1080 AD with the Gods and the fall of the Imperial City.
While, I loved all the parts of the book, it jumped around a bit as you can see. It wasn't hard to follow, but I did have a hard time understanding why and how all these parts were linked together. Then the story takes us to 2001 with an eight year old Grace. The story then continues to progress and by the end of the book Grace is eleven. During the rest of the book the chapters switch between Grace and 1080 AD with the God's.
I really enjoyed reading about Grace. I liked her character. I thought she was very believable and the things that she endured during her young life were heartbreaking. I thought that Patti Roberts did an excellent job writing about the grief of a young girl over the death of her father. I really connected with this because my own father died when I was eleven, and I had felt a lot like Grace had. Some of her inner thoughts about her father's death really struck a chord within me and brought a tear to my eye. I was also moved by the poignant loss that Grace's mother, Kate, displayed at the loss of her husband.
I really feel like this story could have been made better by a really good content editing. There were some places in the story where the narrative POV shifts and it is confusing. Most of the book is written in third person but sometimes it seemed like first person slipped in. These errors interrupted the flow of reading and sometimes made me pause to figure out who was feeling or thinking what. At times I noticed that the tense of the novella shifted from past to present, which also created an interruption of reading.
I really enjoyed the chapters from 1080 AD. The world of the Imperial City and the Gods are something that I was really drawn into. The way they thought, the way they lived and interacted with one another was so different than what we know now. I found it fascinating and almost wished there had been more about them. The detail was rich and all the characters were striking and strong – even when they were being vile (incest anyone?). I really found myself wanting to crawl into their minds to see what made them tick.
I think the biggest downfall (for me) with this book is that I never really understood how Grace could possibly be connected to something that dated all the way back to AD. I mean, is Abbadon still alive? Is he still looking for the girl…could it be Grace reincarnated over the centuries? If so, why? Why did angels seem to rally around her and why aren't all of these angels good?
I never really could see how the God's world connected with Grace's world. I think that the chapters sometimes switching between present day and AD would have worked if the reader had been able to see some sort of parallel between the characters or the worlds. When I put the book down I just didn't see how all these people were connected.
And I want to know.
I think this is an original plot line. I love the Gods and the angels involvement. I really want to know how all of this centers around one girl…
I would recommend this book if you are looking for an interesting plot line and if you are a patient reader. Do not expect to get answers to any of your questions from book one. I am hoping that book two comes together and really shows the reader exactly how these people's lives connect.
This review is written by Cambria Hebert
