When Angels Go Dark

So far, in the best-selling series by L.J. Smith, author of the Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle, we have seen a dying human girl turned into a vampire, three renegade vampire princesses solve a murder and two witch cousins in a deadly fight over a human boy.  In the next book in the Night World series by L.J. Smith, the action and violence are ramped up a bit. The first novel in the second book is called Dark Angel, and for good reason. The main character Gillian is in for quite an experience in the first chapter.

Gillian, while walking home from school, hears a kid crying in the woods. Gillian, a caring person by nature, goes in to try and find this kid and help them. But, instead of a kid, Gillian finds an icy cold creek and by accident, she slips in. Being the middle of winter, Gillian in frozen by the water and slowly starts to fade away. In the woods that day, Gillian Lennox dies. But, she doesn’t quite get to the other side, and an angel comes and sweeps her back to earth.

Angel, a young boy who only Gillian can see, is her guardian angel and is there to protect her and help her through her problems. Angel seems to be the only one to understand her, making her popular at school and giving her confidence. But, he’s not the only one that understands Gillian, her neighbor and crush for years, David Blackburn seems to as well. But, David has a girlfriend and Tanya isn’t about to let David go.

Angel tells Gillian to go and see Tanya, which she does, and they talk about David. Gillian gets Tanya to reveal that she was cheating on David and that she started rumors about Gillian. What she doesn’t expect is that David is right there and hears everything. David also heard Gillian give Tanya a second chance to be good to David, without her saying anything to him. David loves how sweet Gillian is, and now that he and Tanya are done, he can be with her.

But, Tanya is furious at Gillian. She blames her for the breakup and is willing to destroy David and Gillian’s lives in order to pay them back. But, Angel has a plan to save Gillian and David, but it involves magic, dangerous magic that could be harmful to Tanya. It’s scary what Tanya has in mind, to an extent. She is hell-bent on completely ruining David’s life and she doesn’t care about it. The end isn’t as climactic as some of the others. There is no fight scene or anything, but it’s a great story with great characters.

RED’S ALL STAR REVIEW: 3 out of 5 stars. I am an action junkie, myself, so I like a good fight scene or two. There wasn’t any fight scene, but there was a lot of drama and attempts at emotional sympathy for the main characters. I liked the book, but it wasn’t my favorite, but brownie points for a happy ending.

MASS APPEAL: There aren’t vampires or werewolves really, just three witches and a lot of humans, but it’s still good. The witchcraft is extremely exciting in this book compared to Spellbinder where it was all love potions.

Buy Book 2 on Amazon. Click here!