Aliens from the planet Caelus are almost unbelievably beautiful. It’s the only way you can tell them apart from humans. They have banished anger from their repertoire and they have the ability to use “psy” to Jedi mind trick humans they come into contact with. But when they meet Chase Madison, they find he is immune to their mind control, which makes him dangerous. After a run-in with the law, Chase was cell-neighbors with a man who spoke of angels and spaceships and mind control, and now Chase knows too.
So the aliens have to watch over him to make sure he doesn’t…what? Spill the beans? Fight them? We’re never quite sure. But they do send the beautiful Avery to keep tabs on him. This puts Avery in danger because there’s a bad element following Chase around. Naturally, these two can’t help falling for each other, because she’s a babe with a sunny outlook on life who plays with her hair a lot and because he, despite all his ADHD tics, is still just dreamy. How will Chase deal with Avery once he discovers her true identity? What will Avery do with Chase when she already has a hunky alien fiancee? To know that, you’re going to have to read Vol. 2.
And herein lies the problem with THE ANGRIEST ANGEL. It’s the first of a trilogy. And to be a strong trilogy, each book must stand up on its own. ANGEL barely does that. It’s an awful lot of buildup to…what? The only real action set piece is a gunfight at an alien’s mansion. Most of the time, readers are just riding shotgun with Avery and Chase as they make goo-goo eyes at each other. There’s a through line about the aliens getting angry, but it seems the resolution of this, too, is going to be forthcoming. ANGEL could have been whittled down to an exciting, tight first act of one novel and it does handle the main character’s ADHD plausibly, but instead it’s a drawn-out drama leading to what readers assume is big action in Book 2. But to find what, you’ll have to keep reading. If you want to.
The first of a trilogy, THE ANGRIEST ANGEL is finely crafted, but feather-light thriller that almost forces readers to check out the second (and third) volumes to see how things get resolved.
~Steven Foster for IndieReader