The Angry Angel

Vampires, blood, and darkness: an awesome Gothic novel.

No…not the modern Gothic style of dress, hair, makeup, and life…

The Gothic novel with the theme of the fallen hero, ect! If you are not familiar with this classification of novel within the Romantic novel category, click here!

I read this book years ago, I think when I was in middle school. Having found that my opinion of books has changed so dramatically after learning what makes writing “good”, I have decided to start re-reading some of the novels I really loved. After reading it again, now that I am almost ten years older, I can see how much this novel has influenced my early writing.

There are very few vampire novels that do monster seduction really well. I’m not talking Edward-the-sparkly-vampire kinda monster here, I’m talking about monsters who rip out human throats. In fact there are very few non vampire novels that do that well….Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is one of those novels (just throwing that out there!) The Angry Angel does this so well. I wasn’t really conscious of the age of Kelene when I first read this book, being around 14 myself. But any book that can make the loss of innocence (in every way) of a 14 year old a seductive process in which the reader wants her to fall, is well written in my opinion. There is sexual tension and the pull of sensuality, but nothing too crazy over the top.

Still, this age difference didn’t bother me this second time through. Today, yes, the seduction of a 14 year-old would be against the law, but this was the 1500s when girls were commonly married at that age. So take that into consideration before taking out the “child rape!” soapbox.

My favorite part of this book is that there is no love story. Kelene is seduced into being one of Dracula’s brides not because she has fallen in love with him, but because she is a fallen character. She goes from being a religious, pure girl to being one of the infamous brides, delighting in pain, blood, and darkness. I think that wonderful character journey and development is what makes this book so fantastic, even if there isn’t a happy ending.

This book gets 4.5 stars for being so amazing, and deliciously dark!