Angelopolis

Angelopolis takes wing and soars with great gusto through the skies of vivid imagination buffeted by the winds of a thrilling tale. As the sequel to predecessor, Angelology, Angelopolis picks up ten years after the events of the first novel. Proceeding after Angeology the main protagonists Verlaine and Evangeline find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict that has raged for thousands of years between the children of Man and the children of Angels. Together their stories diverge, intersect, and intertwine to weave a tale of bittersweet sorrow and prodigious thrill. While Angelology was a story of discovery, introspection, and nostalgia; Angelology departs to sweep the reader from the confines of their seat into a world filled with angelic beings both beautiful and terrible. Angelopolis still maintains the core beauty of Angelology. While a supernatural and metaphysical thriller filled with evocative and decadent details of its environment; still, Angelopolis maintains for the reader that most important and unifying link between reader and read: intimate humanity. Angelopolis allows the reader to experience the beauty and majesty of the metaphysics and supernaturality of Angelology (the study) & Angelopolis (the novel). The bittersweet humanity of the tale maintains the story, so that while fiction it in no way harbors the preternatural nature that would alienate the reader from its contents. The beauty of Angelopolis like Angelology is in the romance that binds and intertwines Verlaine to Evangeline and Evangeline to Verlaine. As Evangeline's absence has made Verlaine's heart grow fonder, so too has the circumstances around her Nephilistic or Angelic manifestation brought danger into his life. Risking sanity, life, and limb Verlaine has joined the greater community of the Angelolgical Society in the secret hope that one day his efforts would lead him down a path that would cross with Evangeline once again. The raveling and unraveling of their affections will cause both thunderous jubilation and/or bittersweet lamentation, depending upon the perspectives of the reader. Angelopolis maintains the beautiful nostalgia evoked by Danielle Trussoni's command of culture, art, and history. The thrill of the hunt for Evangeline is part historical fiction and metaphysical thriller. Ms. Trussoni's command of detail regarding both the biblical and historical will leave the reader thinking just maybe... but of course the tale is a work of fiction. Then again, the disappointment of such reality is subdued by the nostalgia evoked by her command of culture and art, for in reading the details of her writing one could swear that they had been there or at the very least had experienced the sights, sounds, and sensations themselves from the taste of antediluvian fruit to the sight and beauty of Fabergé Eggs. For those readers who shy away from historical fiction for fear of reading a fictitious text book... Fear Not! For Angelopolis is a thriller whose attention to detail is no filler, for it accentuates and liberates the reader from the confines of one's own experiences into a world so much like our own and yet so enigmatic in the spectacle of its metaphysicality that it levels the reading field for both the cultural connoisseur and the champion of fiction. With a heavy heart, one must conclude that as the sun rises upon victory, so too must it set upon defeat. This story is no fairy tale in body or ending, nor is the plot boring or obvious in the page turning. The intimacy one experiences with the humanity of the characters will allow the reader to either turn the page with ease or flip the page with gusto working one's way to the end to a story that is both novelty and masterpiece. Allow Angelopolis to sweep you away on a thrill ride across both the space and time of Europe and you will read as story just as entertaining if not more so than any artistic code or Angelic/Demoic mystery.

I never write reviews. I appreciate them, but I hardly ever feel the need to drop whatever I should be doing and write an amazon review. Having said that, I felt like I must out forth some kind of warning to those who read and loved the first book (like me) and have been waiting patiently and excitedly for a sequel. This sequel was terrible. I really wish I could put it any differently but it has no redeeming qualities. I honestly wondered several times while reading it whether or not it was written by the same author. Maybe the editing team completely changed?! I don't know. Here is the very short version:The first book wasn't the most well written thing ever, but it had very good sections and made up for the writing with a patiently told, lush, excellent story. The characters where just as important as the action, and the attention to detail with the world building was phenomenal. There is none of that in this second book - none. It is very rushed, all action, the bare minimum of mythology building, and horribly clunky characterizations. All of the nuance of the angelic and human players in Angelology are reduced down to a handful of adjectives. I struggled to understand the purpose of any new character in this book. And lastly, the plot is messy, throws out several loose and unrelated gauntlets and fails to resolve them into any coherent fashion. I'm all for a cliffhanger, but it has to make some sense.The direction of the plot is entirely a subjective call, and this author's right, but again I was disappointed. I could think of so many more interesting stories to come out of Angelology than this one- which felt like it should be the 6th or 7th book, not the 2nd, in this series. I cannot overstate how much I loved the first book, and after this experience, I am now wondering if I'm even going to read the 3rd one. I am not trying to author bash at all- I just want to warn people out there, that this book could not be more different in quality from the first. Purchase at your own risk.

I read Trussoni's first angel outing over three years ago, and it's vivid beauty and strong characters still resonated for months after. Her subtle, mesmerizing portrayal of one girls infiltration of the angelic community, and another's journey to find out her true identity was compelling and interesting. I patiently waited and waited for news of the next installment, and even delayed starting the new book for fear I would rush and it would end too soon.'Angelology' started strong, picking up the story ten years after the climactic events in New York. Verlaine was on a quest to capture his love Evangeline, newly transformed angel, as she fled the murder scene... and that's it. The entire book consisted of Verlaine and several other angel hunters following Evangeline and other angels from New York to Russia to Siberia. Aside from a few tedious pages of extremely detailed explanations about the history of Faberge eggs and how exceptionally beautiful angels are, the story really had no plot line whatsoever. The climactic ending's true power was diminished because there was no intense build up. The book was just flat.A delightful surprise was the conversation between Trussoni and Justin Cronin, the amazing author behind 'The Passage' and 'The Twelve', two of the best books I have ever read, at the end of the book. Despite the flat storyline, it's the characters that will keep me coming back. Even though Gabriella was my favourite from the first book, her daughter Angela had the same tenacity and so does Evangeline. Trussoni has created truly powerful female characters, and hopefully, with a better storyline, the next book will be just as amazing as the first.

I don’t think this was as good as the first book. It was still good but there are things I would have liked to have been done different.Firstly, we don’t get to see much from Evangeline. Considering she was the protagonist for the majority of the first book I found it a little disappointing to only have two small chapters from her POV in this one. Most of the story is told by Verlane who is now a full blown Angelologist, hunting angels in France.And don’t get me wrong, I liked Verlane’s chapters. But the other chapters were filled in by Verlaine’s boss, and another angelologist they meet in Russia. But given the bomb shell we found out about Evangeline at the end of Angelology I just thought that it would have been nice to hear more from her… to see how she has been coping with her new life.I did think that this was a very well written book – history wise – like with the first book, most of the storyline involves delving back into the history of Angelologists and angels and discovering secrets, solving mysteries and following Verlane on his quest to find Evangeline who has been kidnapped. The only niggle I had about this was that some chapters were a little too complicated and I started to forget details about the history and would have to go back and re read bits to try and keep up.There isn’t a whole lot of action, but action isn’t really what these books are about and frankly, it’s not needed. However, for the small amount of action that is involved I did really enjoy this, it gives a very nice climatic ending and made the last few chapters really exciting.The ending was very similar to the first book, in that not everything is resolved and one of the last lines from Verlane is a promise to do something very shocking. Which must mean that there is to be a third book at some point.If you’ve read the first book then I would recommend picking this one up but I just wouldn’t expect it to have the same greatness as the first book.

I awaited the sequel with relish as I had thoroughly enjoyed the prequel Angelology as the premis is fascinating. I finished reading Angelopolis last night and my last thought was really? really!? The book is shorter and rushed. This might have something to do with the rumour that there is a film in the offing. That would certainly account for some of the more 'interesting' scenarios in the book and the, frankly, baffling ending that leaves the story wide open for a third book. Character motivation is all over place and that has nothing to do with adding suspense - it was just too hurriedly written. I'm trying to decide whether I need to read it again because I honestly wonder if I missed something along the way that would make more sense to the storyline. However, there is a nagging voice telling me I'll find nothing so enlightening.... Such a pity - it could have been great!

I loved the first book, which had a great story line as well as some interesting spiritual connotations.Angelopolis by contrast was a massive disappointment. The whole booked felt 'rushed' somehow - and generally badly written. Interesting that there was no 'hype' about this book, the way there had been with the first one. Almost as if the publishers knew it wasn't up to scratch. I don't recall seeing it in any bookshops and only knew it had been published because a friend had spotted it on Amazon. I felt no empathy with any of the characters, which was a real shame as the first book was building on that nicely.The story lines that could have gone somewhere really interesting (eg Noah) were glossed over but the vast majority of the story (particularly the bits about the Romanovs and eggs in general) was just plain daft. I'm not sure I'll bother with the 3rd book in this series (whenever that may come out). Danielle Trussoni is going to have to buck up her ideas to get my interest back!

So disappointing after the excellent first book.Take a powerful lead the audience has taken to their hearts, and immediately have her lose all agency and spend 90% of the book in grim, tortuous captivity, leaving us will a litany of ill-defined filler characters who are never truly given enough depth to make you relate to them or empathise with their situation.Then throw in some random personality shifts which are never explained or justified - I mean really, why does Boy Wonder now want to kill Evangeline? She's literally done nothing wrong, and not 2 pages back he was in love with her and wanted to save her.It feels like this isn't even written by the same author as the first book.What a waste of my time and my money.

I admire the writer so I'll try to be fair. Just note these comments are personal to me;What works - Begins well as we'd had a taster in the first book, some detailed narrative regarding the Faberge' and Czarist connections, beginnings of some character development e.g. Verlaine having an affair in the past with Vera and his son/father relationship with Bruno, historical background and biblical references, beginnings of the development of pseudo-angels caste system, surprising trip into Russia.What doesn't work - more spy and espionage than syfi with irritating scene shifting as if written for a TV/film script (am I being cynical? Think not!), leaving some characters in mid-air e.g. Grigori matriarch on a train and seeing her described briefly as a "toad" -why? Not enough description and when there is it duplicates what has already been written by putting it in a slightly different way. Intelligence is insulted as I thinks I can understand that a rusty old Zid is not a Ducati. More mid-air stuff; How did the twins end up inside the prison? Why is the Russian Angelologist, Vera, left inside the mountain with a Watcher? Very dissatisfactory ending i.e. Evangeline flying off with her Dad and the phial and Verlaine vowing to kill her... er... why? Poor editing didn't help either.I read on only because I'd paid for the copy. If it had been a library book I'd have taken it back early. Very sad as the writer has talent.