Angel Time

Five stars are not enough! Anne Rice has out-done herself again in this stunning masterpiece. Toby O'Dare is a man who has seen more than his share of tragedy and has turned cold as a result. His life as a hit man is punctuated with peace only in his quiet reprieves at the Mission Inn, where he plays his lute and escapes into history books about the middle ages. When he is assigned a hit...more

Five stars are not enough! Anne Rice has out-done herself again in this stunning masterpiece. Toby O'Dare is a man who has seen more than his share of tragedy and has turned cold as a result. His life as a hit man is punctuated with peace only in his quiet reprieves at the Mission Inn, where he plays his lute and escapes into history books about the middle ages. When he is assigned a hit that violates his last vestige of sanctity, his bitter, mocking prayer for guidance is answered by an angel named Malchiah. Malchiah offers Toby an assignment for which only Toby's experience in deception can bring the perfect solution. Toby travels with Malchiah to the middle ages where a Jewish couple in Norwich have been accused of killing their daughter. Toby arrives as the person he dreamed of becoming in his youth; his mission: to prove the couple's innocence. The outcome of this story comes with a profound mixture of horror and beauty that only Anne Rice could design. This book is called a "Christian fiction" because it is about redemption for the irredeemable. But the story transcends religion. We are all Toby. We have all seen tragedy that has turned us cold, at least to a degree - a degree that aches within us. And we would all benefit from an experience such as Toby's in Angel Time, a chance to right something wrong, to use the defenses we've built within as a means to vindicate the innocent. Travel in Angel Time with Toby and discover what is within you that has the capacity to birth love. For Angel Time is a story of love above all.   hide

interesting

This latest work of Anne Rice is what I call Anne-Rice-lite; the hardback edition is only 266 pages and whilst she has written other novels of similar length, Angel Time doesn’t have the epic embrace of her Vampire Chronicles series. The blurb on the book calls it “a dark gothic novel of suspense about assassins and angels” but I don’t agree with that description. I didn’t find it...more

This latest work of Anne Rice is what I call Anne-Rice-lite; the hardback edition is only 266 pages and whilst she has written other novels of similar length, Angel Time doesn’t have the epic embrace of her Vampire Chronicles series. The blurb on the book calls it “a dark gothic novel of suspense about assassins and angels” but I don’t agree with that description. I didn’t find it particularly dark or gothic. Angel Time lacks the brooding depth of her vampire stories; indeed the beginning of the book is set in sunny California where the protagonist, Toby, takes many pages to tell us all about the history and architectural style of Christian missions established there under that state’s clear blue skies. The storyline is simple – Toby O’Dare aka Lucky the Fox (sounds like a cartoon character), a contract killer who feels nothing for his victims, but has a bountiful supply of hate for God which developed after a tragedy struck his family when he was a teenager. An angel appears to him and offers him a chance to redeem himself, to save lives rather than take them. And so he is transported to 13th century Norwich where he is tasked to rescue a group of Jews who face death at the hands of the mob. This is where you’d expect the old Anne Rice to kick in, a chance for her to go overboard with the whole gothic style that made her such a successful author. But no, descriptions of life in the 1200s are kept to a minimum, just enough to set the scene and create the appropriate images in her readers’ minds. I would love to be able to read Angel Time as an Anne Rice virgin, i.e., to have no experience of her previous work or of her own life – because such knowledge has coloured my appreciation of Angel Time. I know that Anne Rice turned her back on God and Christianity following the death of her 6 yr old daughter from leukaemia; I know that she drowned her life in alcohol for several years afterwards and I know that it was during this time she began to writing the story of the vampire Lestat and other dark and deadly characters – it is said that the character of Claudia, the child vampire, was her way of resurrecting her daughter, a young girl forever young and immortal. I know that in the late 90s she returned to her faith and embraced Christianity saying she would write only to glorify her belief in God. So when Toby says “…I’d been talking to God…and telling Him how much I hated Him that He didn’t exist” or “The thinnest hope of salvation sustained me. In my heart of hearts I whispered “Lord, forgive me that I ever separated myself from you.” I know it is Anne Rice talking through her character. Not to say that’s a bad thing, surely there is some part of every writer in his or her creations. But my problem is that I cant divorce my knowledge of Anne Rice from Toby. When Toby speaks such words as above, I see her, not him. And I admit my own antipathy towards Christianity and The Church comes into play too. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book and eagerly await the second instalment in her Angel Time series. I’m a self confessed Anne Rice fan but not so blinded by the genius of the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches saga that I cant or wont be critical of her more recent offerings such as her fictionalised biography of Jesus and now, Angel Time. How you receive Angel Time will depend on how well you know the author and what has gone before. I would recommend it but with reservations.   hide

Not the classic Anne Rice, but still quite compelling.