Covenant: The Books of Raziel: 2

Arrived in great condition ... and I loved it very good stories i love all the characters! Cant wait to read the next one it's already in it's way

Here we have the next installment of Ms. Benulis' Gothic Horror series about the end of the universe and the red haired Archon who will herald it all. First, let me say that this world is dark and filled with wonderful ghosts, demons, and angels and is an imaginative spooky take on the whole angels and demons fall From grace story. I had re-read the original book Archon, in great anticipation of this book' release. And it helped me get though some of the more baffling sequences in the Book of Raziel. I do not like it when I have to work to follow threads of a story and try to fill in the blanks. Getting lost in a book, and not in a "Oh my gosh is that the time I forgot to eat" is not fun. I went back, started over and read it again, and while I was better able to follow the plot the second time round, I still found it rather like clutching at eels for the first two thirds. It tightened up at the end, and the scenes with the angels were very good, but I was left with a vague impression that while I had experienced something new, I was not totally happy about it.This is a gothic horror novel, so I expect dark twisty plots, and characters dying or being maimed, but this is a YA novel, not an epic Umberto Eco masterpiece. In the first book you can feel creepy halls, creaky doors and a drafty damp school filled with students in a Revenge meets Harry potter sort of way, this one whipped you from one location to another switching perspectives at odd times, and I never was able to get a clear picture in my head of the scenery. For example, in the hell ball, I sort of got the picture they were dancing under a red light (like in a photo development booth) with a red fountain and masks, but that was it. The doors were big so I assume it was a big room, but were there thirty demons? A hundred? Was it a cave, a mansion, some combination of the two? Were they dressed in gowns, a pompadour, haram pants? Was the music fast? They danced so there was music right? And there was food she was not supposed to eat, what was it? How many tables? Was the food piled high in a glutinous display? I know she ran into one table, but it sort of popped into the scene when she hit it. That kind of thing. I had to work very hard at picturing the scenes and it sometimes pulled me out of the story. I am using an example that hopefully does not give much away, but most of the book read like that to me: small vignettes almost staged like a play with cut scenes between acts. The bits of angel history we get are great, and there are several secrets that are dropped throughout that were terrific, but I just did not like this book as much as the first. It could be suffering from second book syndrome (second in a trilogy) where this book is all about setting the stage for the climax in book three... So, I will buy the third book, and hope for an epic climax, definitely read the first book again before reading this one.

This book holds many critical moments for not only Angela, but Troy, Kim, and others. I am left anxiously awaiting the events of book 3!

I bought this book a few years ago and misplaced it. It's taken me awhile to find again but it was worth it. What a wonderfully in depth story

Love love love this series!