Title: Angel Time (Songs of the Seraphim Book 1)
Author: Anne Rice
Released: October 27, 2009
Publisher: Knopf Publishers
Pages: 288
Overall: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Hired assassin and one-time aspirant to the priesthood, Toby O’Dare, has just consummated his latest kill when guardian angel, Malchiah, visits Toby and offers him a chance for redemption. Accepting the offer, Toby is whisked away to 13th-century England, where, in the guise of a Dominican friar, he becomes the protector of a Jewish couple unjustly accused by the gentile populace of having murdered their young daughter for her conversion to Christianity.
Set in two very different worlds and written with a fluency that testifies to long hours of research on the part of the author, Angel Time is certainly not your average supernatural novel. The characters are unique, the plot engaging, and the words spun together flawlessly and effortlessly in typical Anne Rice style. The story is chopped up in two places where inserted are the background stories of Toby’s life and that of the 13th-century Jewish woman he is attempting to help. In most books I would object to such a fragmentation of the plot; in most books it would seem tedious to work through such long narratives, but not so in this book thanks to Rice’s colorful writing.
I did not like the first half of this book as much as the second half, the first half detailing Toby’s life before Malchiah’s arrival. It was too dark, depressing, and morbid for my taste. I don’t condemn the book for this, but simply didn’t enjoy the first half as much on that account. The second half was much more interesting and engaging to me. Rice did a fine job of expressing the turmoil of the European Jews in the Middle Ages and weaved a believable tale around that critical setting. Perhaps my only moral complaint about this book was the fact that Toby uses deception to solve the problem he was sent to resolve and this method of resolution seemed to be endorsed by the angel Malchiah, and hence, heaven itself. This didn’t sit quite right within the context of the story, which was Toby seeking redemption for the evil he had committed. Overall, a good book with some minor flaws.
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Disclosure: I checked out a copy of this book at my local library.
I really liked your review of this, particularly your comparison of the two halves of the book — that’s so good to know, because I would probably share your assessment of the first part and may have given up on it, not knowing that it became much less foreboding.
I read Rice’s Lestat series twenty years ago. I gave up on her shortly thereafter after reading Lasher, her book that made me so creeped out I couldn’t finish the last fifty pages (I’m serious!). It seems like her writing has taken a turn all these years later, and maybe I should try her again.
A few years ago (not sure exactly how long it’s been) she converted back to Catholicism and decided to stop writing the vampire books and focus on more uplifting topics. Since then she’s written 2/3 books in her Christ the Lord trilogy, Angel Time, which has a sequel coming out in November, and a spiritual memoir which was really good. If the vampire books didn’t sit well with you, her new books might be a good alternative.
Gosh .. I haven’t read Anne Rice in forever!!! I read almost all of her Vampire Lestat books back in the day but then never really read anything else by her.
I haven’t read any of her vampire books. I got into reading her newer books after I read her memoir about a year ago, which was really good.