Title: Broken Angels
Author: Harambee K. Grey-Sun
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Rating: worthy
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley.
I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is shorter so as not to rob the writer of his story, but even so, it will probably still be more detailed than you'll typically find elsewhere!
Yeah, yeah, you knew I had something going on the side! Well it's another ebook which I'm reading at times when it's not convenient to read the bigger, heftier, hardback version of Daughter of Smoke & Bone. But holding that real book is infinitely more satisfying than holding a Kindle!
This is another ebook published via Amazon's Create Space, which is how my own stuff gets published, so I'll try to be nice! But I have to ask: do you have any idea how many books are out there with Broken Angel(s) as (or in) the title?!! I swear I'm going to write one called Fixed Angel. It's an angel who's trapped, see, like one of those weeping angels in Doctor Who, and it's gorgeous with a cleft chin and unruly hair falling into its muscular eyes, and corded brow, and this plain ordinary girl who has nothing going for her except that her parents are dead, comes along and the fixed angel falls hopelessly in love. Yeah! That's it! That's the one! Best seller here I come! Fixed Angel - Book One of the Awesomely Superb Scintillatingly Heartbreaking Angel Trueloves series (ASSHAT for short, but not for long!). The angel's name is Bryce Cañon, and the girl's name is Mary Su Perchick....
Ooookay! Touching back down on planet Earth, this novel sounds to me like what you'd experience if you took LSD. I've never tried that so I can't speak from personal experience, but if you want to know how I think it feels, read this book! It's whacked. I thought it was going to turn out to be pure religious propaganda (to which you know I don't react well) but it was nothing like H20 (reviewed elsewhere in this blog).
It starts off in a world where at some point in the not-too-distant past, strange flies appeared at random points all over the globe and infected people with a parasite. The flies then disappeared before they could be classified. The parasite is excited by light, and is rather quickly deadly in many cases, being passed on like AIDS. It persists in a very low level in society, and for those people it does not kill quickly, it conveys some supernatural powers rather reminiscent of some of those in the TV show Heroes. These powers seem closely tied to the electromagnetic spectrum, so that the infected ones can change their skin color and even render themselves invisible. They can also elevate themselves above the ground and move as they do so, as well as direct forms of the EM spectrum such as light and infrared, turning them into weapons.
Some people cannot avail themselves of these powers, while others can to a greater or lesser extent. Robert and Darryl both have the power, and work for a lost child investigative agency loosely affiliated with the Heartland Security Agency. Yes, Heartland, don't ask! Why there is this level of importance placed on lost children such that it's even considered for such an affiliation remains unexplained. Darryl thinks of himself as being on a mission to prevent attractive young women (and perhaps men - it's a bit vague on that score) from mating and thereby perhaps acquiring the parasite - although since they exchange spit, how they fail to get infected from him is a mystery.
Indeed, why they would even want any kind of unprotected intimacy with him, since he's obviously infected with the parasite, also remains a mystery. Apparently he can 'persuade' them. It's not quite rape, apparently, because he doesn't have sex with them (unless, of course, your definition of rape is really broad); however, what he does is most definitely a form of coercion/invasion, and is therefore an abuse, but then that's religion for women all over, isn't it?! He achieves his dastardly ends by changing his skin color and bending light to make himself look rather angelic, complete with wings and a halo.
Robert is all business and resents Darryl's absences from his job in pursuit of his religious calling. The two of them do battle with the anarchic and disorganized Infinite Definite (aka the Id - yes, as in Freud) and on one occasion liberate a kidnap victim, Ava, who later disappears from the hospital where she's recovering from the abuse she received at the hands of the Id. Someone - possibly an attractive woman, is following Robert, but she apparently can bend light too, because although he has that sneaky feeling he's being watched, he can't see her.
I never did find out how she was, or if it was revealed, I missed it somehow, but I believe she was a member of a new and more dangerous group than the Id. She was a part of the Killer Vees, a group of women who all have names starting with a 'V'. This part amused me greatly, because they were so dedicatedly weird and dastardly that you had to love them. They make Darryl pay for his sins by kidnapping him and trying to indoctrinate him rather like a religious cult would do.
So after a weird romp on the metro, trying to shake his tail in two shakes of a lamb's tail, Robert finally makes it home to find Ava waiting for him inside his apartment and apparently ready to go at it like bunnies. Hmm! He eventually teams up with her and they eventually bring down their enemies - and nothing naughty happens between them. I liked their interaction almost as much as I liked the Killer Vees.
Yeah, I know: this novel sounds truly weird, doesn't it? Normally I would trash something like this, but for some reason this one grabbed my funny bone and I had to finish the thing. I'm perversely attracted to this story. It was just intriguing and quirky enough to keep me going, so I'll rate it as a worthy.
