Shannon’s Reviews > Angelfall > Status Update

Not without some minor quibbles, but as far as self-published books go, this is pretty much the gold standard. I've also recommended this to four friends already (and SubCat even finished and gave it 4 stars! yay!) and I do so without any worries. For once, this is a book everyone loves that deserves its praise.

My mother clenches her hands and prays desperately over my body in the low guttural sounds that is her speaking-in-tongues. They are her unique perversions of words that are undoubtedly disturbing to hear, but she chants them in a cadence that's somehow lulling at the same time. Leave it to Mom to be simultaneously frightening and soothing, as only an insane mother can be.

I look at the angel's blank eyes, his bleeding mouth. His head trembles, tapping against the floor.
I slam the blade into his heart.
I've never killed anyone before. What frightens me isn't that I'm killing someone. What frightens me is how easy it is.

Paige.

He grabs another drink from a passing waiter who holds a tray full of various drinks. Raffe tosses that one back as well and grabs another before the waiter leaves. He's downed four drinks in the short time it took for me to get myself together and find him. Either he's shaken by something or he's falling off the wagon hard and fast. Great. Just my luck to be partnered with an alcoholic angel.

His face is so close to mine our breaths mingle. Yet he's far away from me in a place where he's buffeted by emotions deep and unkind. Whatever he's feeling, it's very human. I have this strong compulsion to try to pull him out of this mood, to try to distract him.
I place my hand on his cheek. It's warm and pleasant. Maybe too pleasant. When his eyes don't open, I tentatively touch my lips to his.

She'd sit on the floor beside my bed, rock back and forth in a trancelike state, gripping her Bible and speaking in tongues for hours. The nonsensical, guttural noises had the cadence of an angry chant. Or a curse.
Really creepy stuff while you're lying in the dark, mostly asleep. That's about the extent of my religious education.

He stares into my eyes for a moment. His eyes are so intense.
I hold my breath.
I swear he's memorizing me as though his mental camera is firing, capturing me in this moment. he even inhales deeply as though filling up on my scent.

This skirts the line of creepy/hot for sure.

The cheering crowd instantly mutes. The only noise I hear is Boden's groaning. Sounds like he's having trouble breathing.
Just to make sure he stays that way, I jump up and kick him in the face. I kick him so hard his body spins halfway on the dirt.
I wind up for another kick, this time to the stomach. When you're small enough to have to look up at everyone around you, there's no such thing as a dirty fight.

The men are stacking desktop computers and cementing them into a privacy wall.
"Yup," says Dolores as she sees what I'm looking at. "My husband always did call his electronic gadgets 'bricks' when they got phased out."
They got phased out all right. Computers were the height of our technological prowess, and now, we're using them as latrine walls, thanks to the angels.

That makes my heart hurt.