Review: Angelfire (Angelfire #1)

Title: Angelfire
Author: Courtney A. Moulton
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 453
Challenge: Debut Author 2011


My Rating:

When seventeen-year-old Ellie starts seeing reapers - monstrous creatures who devour humans and send their souls to Hell - she finds herself on the front lines of a supernatural war between archangels and the Fallen and faced with the possible destruction of her soul. A mysterious boy named Will reveals she is the reincarnation of an ancient warrior, the only one capable of wielding swords of angelfire to fight the reapers, and he is an immortal sworn to protect her in battle. Now that Ellie's powers have been awakened, a powerful reaper called Bastian has come forward to challenge her. He has employed a fierce assassin to eliminate her - an assassin who has already killed her once. While balancing her dwindling social life and reaper-hunting duties, she and Will discover Bastian is searching for a dormant creature believed to be a true soul reaper. Bastian plans to use this weapon to ignite the End of Days and to destroy Ellie's soul, ending her rebirth cycle forever. Now, she must face an army of Bastian's most frightening reapers, prevent the soul reaper from consuming her soul, and uncover the secrets of her past lives - including truths that may be too frightening to remember. -summary from goodreads.com

This book was just plain out awesome! It’s one of those books you pick up thinking, “I’ll read a couple chapters tonight” and next thing you know its 3am and you’ve finished the book. Yeah… that awesome.

I absolutely loved Ellie. She’s an awesome heroine that knows how to kick ass and take names. Her character was a great change from the damsel in distress who always needs to be rescued by the big strong boy, in this case, Will. There was a lot of mystery to Will and the things he knew but wouldn't tell Ellie. I often times find myself annoyed when a character purposely holds back information, and in the beginning I was mad at Will for not coughing up the dirty secrets. But then later on in the novel you find out his reasons why and everything he does for Ellie…. *sigh*. I need to find myself a Will.

One of my favorite lines that had me literally laughing out loud was when Ellie and Will are training; “His fingers traced the curve of my shoulder softly, as his gaze fell. I gasped sharply. If he tried to kiss me, I’d slap the crap out of him. Bond or no bond.” Haaaa! Loved it. This quote gives you a good glimpse at Ellie's personality... Oh and I was totally rooting for her and Will but I couldn’t help buy LOL when I read that scene…. Haha! Classic!

My only complaint (and minor set back) was the fact that we don’t know much of Ellie’s background until practically the last chapter. Throughout the book I would find myself a bit confused/lost when it came to the reapers, good/bad vir’s…. Who’s what? Who is Ellie? Where did she come from? Why are things so different in this version of her life? And WTF is up with her dad? There’s something fishy about him…. I feel confident in saying that he will probably play a much bigger role in the next book cause characters with an attitude like that just can’t be ignored.

But like I said a lot of information is revealed in the end and all lose ends are tied up nicely (with the exception of psycho dad). I just wish the author would have spread out the info throughout the book, instead of just packing it all up for the grand finale. But, I’m happy to say that it worked out nicely. Overall, Angelfire is a great action pack debut that will leave you craving for more. Can’t wait for Wings of the Wicked :)