Rebellion by Lou Morgan (2013)
A strained sequel
Book cover blurb
"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...
My Review
Well, this is a tough one...
I think it's what you'd call a love-hate relationship.
I enjoyed the writing and the characters (well, for the most part) but I'm finding it hard to say I enjoyed the book.
Lou Morgan's first book in this series, Blood And Feathers, was a great read. Fantastic characters, driving story and intriguing. Rebellion, on the other hand, at least in the first half, had no real story, watered down characters and didn't really pique my interest. And I think there lies the crux of the thing. This book felt to me like two segments forced together. I can't help but think that the second half of this book is what the author actually wanted to say, but maybe she'd been told that it wasn't enough and it needed a build up to those events. So we have the first half of the book which just seems to be forced, spinning its wheels for the sake of it. As I mentioned, there doesn't seem to be any story or forward drive, it just sort of meanders. Even the characters, early in the writing, come across as thin and just a shadow of what they were in the first book. And from that I can understand why there was never a third book produced.
I so desperately wanted this book to give me the highs I got when I read the first book, but it just doesn't get the job done.
I've given this a 3 star rating simply on the merits of the second half of the book. It picked up the pace, gave things some real drive and really pushed me forward and made it quite hard to put down. The characters transformed back into the interesting and three-dimensional 'Angels' I remembered really connecting with in book one. Devious, cruel and deathly loyal. You have to love them.
My copy of this novel
Solaris Books paperback edition.
Published in 2013
364 pages
ISBN 9781781081235