After the murder of her best friend and roommate, Brielle moves back home to small Oregon town, her dreams, courage, and heart shattered. She begins to mechanically put her life back together, but without her passion and goal of doing ballet, it rings hollow. Until she sees a boy watching her as she dances off some steam at the local studio. Jake is new in town where most of the kids grew up together…and he’s hot. Literally. Drawn to the mystery of both the calming heat that radiates from him and to the healing power in his hands, Brielle begins to seek answers. Her entire world is once more shattered as she is forced to acknowledge empirical evidence of the supernatural, the escape and arrival in her town of the man convicted of killing her friend, and the physical changes manifesting from her exposure to the divine. She has two choices: jump in faith, or fall in fear.
There are so many books about the supernatural right now both Christian and secular, the genre seems almost bled dry. When I started Angel Eyes, I felt confident I knew how the book would go. Brielle would meet an impossibly gorgeous young man, fall for him, their romance would be forbidden because he isn’t actually human (or is only partly human), and in the end either they would decided they didn’t care or Brielle would turn out not to be human too. And I was wrong. Angel Eyes is a unique book in its genre, and while the angels and demons that its title promises are there, they are written with a great deal more reverence than I’ve found in the genre as a whole. The book has many beautiful twists I don’t want to give away, but Canaan’s gift to Jake that sets the whole plot in motion is something I can actually believe an angel would do.
As for Jake and Brielle, I found their relationship refreshing and fun. It was normal – as normal as they could manage with all the angels and demons anyway. All the jokes and double entendres about the literal heat that Jake gave off were actually kind of cute, and some of their exchanges including one about a tutu were laugh out loud funny. Brielle is a devastated young woman looking for a friend. Jake is compassionate, fully human boy looking to help. Despite some reveals toward the end of the book, they turned into a believable couple, sort of like the kids in college everyone knew were going to get married even if it took them a while to figure it out.
The peril in this book is actually pretty intense at times on both the physical and spiritual plans. And the murder of Brielle’s friend is a major plot point that is often revisited. The first few pages are actually some of the most violent and serve as a good measure for the rest of this book. But beyond that, I’d say Angel Eyes is very accessible and very safe read. For junior high readers who aren’t affected by action peril and are interested in the Paranormal genre, this is one of the few books I’d feel safe recommending., but it’s a good read for highschoolers and adults too. While Brielle is the main character, she and Jake share the pages well, and I didn’t feel Angel Eyes was as much a girl book as others of its kind.
My thanks to BookSneeze for providing me a review copy of Angel Eyes, in return for my honest opinion of this book.