Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton

Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton is the second installment to the Angelfire series. Published by HarperCollins on January 31, 2012 and has 582 delicious pages!
I want to thank HarperCollins and ATWT for allowing me to view this ARC in exchange for my honest to goodness opinion!

Life as the Preliator is harder than Ellie ever imagined.
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.


Courtney's debut ANGELFIRE was a 2011 Indie Next Pick.
THE FAERYS VIEW


The second installment of the Angelfire series, Wings of the Wicked (WotW) by Courtney Allison Moulton was full of angsty forbidden love between Preliator Ellie and her Guardian, Will and shockingly an almost love triangle. Although they have century’s worth of time and memories between them, Ellie still hasn’t quite recovered her memory of her past lives as Archangel Gabriel who is reborn again and again to fight the reapers and all the evil they bring.


First off, Will is one of the most endearing and patient of males I’ve ever seen in a YA PNR, yes, he takes his guardianship of Ellie extremely serious but he also has the big time forever love for her. Despite the ‘cozy situations’ they get in, Will is always patient and stops on a dime, waiting until Ellie is ready to commit to him. This is where the whole forbidden love comes in: If Gabriel’s brother, Archangel Michael were to find out that there were anything less than a platonic relationship between Ellie and Will, the sentence would be death for Will. Interestingly, this is kind of a big deal in the beginning of the book but as the pages go on, it really isn’t mentioned much. I’m not sure why but it seemed to become a non-existent issue. The things Will does for Ellie outside of his guardian duties are sweet and even though some of the things he does are pretty far outside the scope of his comfort level, he does these things for her happiness.

Then there is Cadan, remember him from Angelfire-the sexy demonic reaper who was just a tad on the evil side? Well, he’s baaacck and giving Will a serious run for his money. It seems that Cadan’s devilishly sexy thoughts about Ellie may be changing to actual love-dovey feelings i.e. genuine smiles, sad eyes, warm looks, a sparkle to his eyes etc… you get the picture. Cadan even puts his own life on the line when he warns her about Bastian’s nefarious plans but still, can Ellie really trust him? There’s certainly an element of attraction there and maybe Cadan is taking a look at becoming a less evil demonic reaper… stranger things have happened or maybe he's setting her up for certain death, again---who knows? Well, I do but I read the book and so should you! Two things could be happening on the Cadan sitch: there’s nothing like being in love with a beautiful girl/Archangel to make a demon change from beheading and disemboweling his enemies to actually helping them and/or there's nothing like a soulful look and a winsome smile while throwing a bone of information to get your enemy to trust you... Big thoughtful Hmmmmmm.....



Ellie has grown some in WotW but I must say that I was a bit disappointed in her consistent lack of fighting skills. She’s the Preliator, man! She is the only one that can wield Angelfire yet she still seems to hide behind Will. I just wish she would really start to do some booty kicking! I know she can do it but in some instances it seems like she either moves to slow, cowers behind Will or waits until it's to late to use her Angelfire. With that being said, I really like Ellie as a character, truly, I do. She is faithful to the cause, brave in the face of adversity (just not the best fighter all the time) and her heart is in the right place. Ellie is determined to live as normal of a life as possible while still maintaining her Preliator duties; she remains in school, goes to parties in which she drags Will to despite his discomfort and hangs with her friends. It doesn’t take long before she realizes that having a normal life is going to put those she loves in danger.



Throughout the book, Courtney keeps the action on high octane; fighting reapers while out patrolling, attacks by the reapers, and so much more. I loved the patrolling scenes-they were very Buffyesque and the fight scenes were perfect, not drawn out to boredom and exciting enough to capture and hold my attention.
There’s also a fair amount of romance and Ellie finds she has more than just Will as an admirer as I said a bit earlier, Ellie is constantly fighting her extreme attraction to Will and only feels 'home' when she's in Will's arms.
WotW isn't all hearts n' flowers, there is tremendous heart-break for all in WotW that not only left me greatly saddened but I'll admit to a sniffle and a sob a few times during the book. Courtney isn't kidding around, this is a serious book with grave situations, horrific battles and tragic deaths.

Courtney does a fantastic job creating characters that interact and mesh perfectly to fit the plot, I had no trouble identifying with all the characters including the secondary’s who I felt played an important part in making WotW such a fantastic read. I am fascinated with the biblical mythology that Courtney has created especially how she has made the distinctions between the fallen along with the descriptions of the Demons and Archangels; Ellie’s recollections of the many large bloody battles fought over the eons between good and evil put things in perspective for her, it's something she will do just about anything to avoid happening again.


THE FAERY SAYS WINGS OF THE WICKED IS AS ALMOST AS GOOD AS FAERY-FRUIT WINE!


8 comments:

  1. Cool! I still have to read this- I love the sound of Will, awww! I just love a good forbidden romance story!

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  2. I have both of these books, although I haven't read them, but I just saw the author on the Dark Days Tour and she was so sweet!

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  3. What? Did you say Buffy? OMG. I loved the comparisons, it totally sold me. I haven't read this series yet, but now I really want to!

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  4. Hm... I know it would bother me that Ellie sucks at fighting, but as long as the characters are good, I think I can deal. Still with the romance and how Will sounds... I think I'd end up liking it!

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  5. Ah, I absolutely love this book! I'm so glad you heart it too and I agree with you about Will. He is definitely one of the most patient male characters evah! <333 I cannot wait to see what's going to go down in book three!

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  6. I was okay the Ellie was a little off on the Angelfire in the first book. She was still learning and she was still a kick ass heroine! But STILL??? Really? And I remember the Ellie/Will situation was a big no/no according to Will throughout the last book and she didn't understand until the end. Now you say it's dropped? Hmm. I think I know one person that betrays her by his obvious change in behavior in the last book and I'm guessing he dies. I just don't know if I can remember enough of the last book to read this one. Maybe if it had come out sooner. I remember loving the first book so much, but I don't remember much of the last battle or who Bastian is or why he wants to kill her. That's why I hate that it takes a year to put the next book out. Especially on these epic books. Maybe they should start doing recaps in the front of the books.

    That was a faery fantastic review. Sorry, had to get all of that off my chest.
    Love ya girlie!
    Heather
    I seem to be following you around the blogosphere today!

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  7. So I will have to pick up Book 1 and give it a whirl. I am OK with the lead not being kick ass all the time--makes them a little more relatible.

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  8. Ack - I didn't realize this one was out already - I so need to get it, especially after your review, sounds great!!
    - Jessica @ Book Sake

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