Balancing real life with the responsibility of being Heaven’s warrior is a challenge for Ellie. Her relationship with Will has become all business, though they both long for each other. And now that the secret of who she really is has come out, so have Hell’s strongest reapers. Grown bold and more vicious, the demonic threaten her in the light of day and stalk her in the night.
She’s been warned.
Cadan, a demonic reaper, comes to her with information about Bastian’s new plan to destroy Ellie’s soul and use an ancient relic to wake all the souls of the damned and unleash them upon humanity. As she fights to stay ahead of Bastian’s schemes , the revelations about those closest to her awaken a dark power within Ellie that threatens to destroy everything—including herself.
She’ll be betrayed.
Treachery comes even from those whom she loves, and Ellie is broken by the deaths of those who stood beside her in this Heavenly war. Still, she must find a way to save the world, herself, and her love for Will. If she fails, there will be hell to pay.
I picked up Angelfire last year because everyone was raving about Wings of the Wicked and it was so awesome and badass. So I bought Wings of the Wicked right away and 15 months later, I read it. I don’t know what made me wait, I loved the first one so much, but other books kept jumping in its way. But it finally worked its way back to the top of my reading pile and I was reminded how much I love Will and Ellie. Even after such a long time between books, the first one came back to me in bits and pieces. I actually found it easy to jump back into their lives as if no time had passed.
Ellie is still one of the toughest heroines out there. She has a lot of responsibility and a lot of power, but the way she handles it all is impressive. She keeps her human life and her friends – she can actually be a teenager and save the world at the same time. She’s very Buffy that way. She’s very Buffy in a lot of ways – being the chosen one and leading a group of people whose purpose is to rid the world of demons and still looking adorable and all. She goes through a lot in this book and my heart breaks for her more than once. She gets a little reckless, but I think she has every right to be that way.
Will and Ellie together are still frustrating. They keep sticking to the whole we-can’t-be-together dance way too long and it just doesn’t quite make sense why not. Especially when they’re already as close as they are. Yet, for the tension in the book it works. It’s frustrating, but you know I love it. I remember a lot of buzzing about Cadan stepping it up in this book and seeing Team Cadan camps popping up. Yet, I don’t see it. He has his moments, but I can’t see him as a real contender to replace Will in hero status. So, guess that makes me Team Will.
I will say that I came near the close of this book and was getting a little bit of a juvenile feeling from the story. I recognize completely that it’s YA, so this is very much a personal thing, but I felt slightly as I’d outgrown the story a bit – which may have been from the time gap between books and my own history since then or it could be my reading style. I’m not sure what it is, but I felt as though I’d left behind high school friends who never really left high school. This, actually, hasn’t happened to me before in reading YA. It’s curious, but not a big enough conundrum to stop me from loving the book and the story. I’ll definitely be reading book three, especially after that ending (!!).
