Bad Angels

Shannon is a fallen angel; she’s not evil, but she prefers humans and their messy free will to the “unquestioning obedience” of the “silent links in a chain” that is the orthodox angelic hierarchy. On the run from angelic Special Investigator Peter Arrowsmith, Shannon meets George, a talented artist obsessed with images of angels and wings. Their immediate enchantment with one another eventually pits Shannon, George, and even Peter against the authoritarian angel Melton, nephew of an Archangel. Danvers’s warm-hearted whimsy is sometimes cloying—Shannon constantly refers to her wings as her “beauties”—and at other times improbably silly, as when a key character’s best friend just happens to be a train engineer who can conveniently drive a train carrying more than 3,000 fallen angels to an important destination. Nevertheless, Danvers’s sweetly romantic fantasy is both charming and optimistic as love and free will inspire Shannon, George, Peter, and their misfit friends to take a stand against the forces of heaven. (Oct.)