Angelopolis by Danielle Trussoni (Angelolgy #2)
March 26, 2013
Paranormal
Penguin

Reviewed by May 

A decade has passed since Verlaine saw Evangeline alight from the Brooklyn Bridge, the sight of her wings a betrayal that haunts him still. The Nephilim are again on the rise, scheming to construct their own paradise—the Angelopolis—and ruthlessly pursued by Verlaine in his new calling as an angel hunter. But when Evangeline materializes, Verlaine is besieged by doubts that will only grow as forces more powerful than even the Nephilim draw them from Paris to Saint Petersburg and deep into the provinces of Siberia and the Black Sea coast. A high-octane tale of abduction and liberation, treasure seeking and divine warfare, Angelopolis plumbs Russia’s imperial past, modern genetics, and the archangel Gabriel’s famous visitations to conceive a fresh tableau of history and myth that will, once again, enthrall readers the world over.

I picked this book up because it is hailed by USA Today as “a thrill ride best described as The Da Vinci Code meets Raiders of the Lost Ark”. In my mind, the literary world needs more smart explorers with great knowledge of history out exploring and detailing their adventures, and that comparison alone sold me on this story.

The similarity to Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon series begins and ends with the author’s use of historically accurate details and artifacts to assist in creating her fictional world. Where Langdon is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters, utterly unforgettable and always on a fascinating adventure, the characters in Angelopolis were utterly without personality. Where Dan Brown creates a richly layered story, Trussoni had endlessly tiring information dumps and randomly scattered bursts of action. Where Raiders of the Lost Arc is constantly entertaining, Angelolopolis was a chore to read.

While I have not read the first book in this series, I did read several in-depth reviews of the first book and I found it easy to pick right up with this story and did not ever feel lost or as if I was missing major pieces of information. The author clearly researched her book carefully and I was intrigued by all of the details, the discovery of missing Faberge eggs, and in seeing how all of the people and intricate details would be woven together. I was absorbed by the concept that there are lots of different angel types, hybrids, and the intrigue surrounding both the eggs and this Angelopolis that the angels are allegedly building. I wanted to know more about this Angelology society and their inner workings. For an organization it seemed much had been separated and kept apart – to the point of hurting their goals and progress and I wondered why that was.

Evangeline is the most interesting of the characters, and she is barely seen. She is captured, and we really don’t see her again except for a fleeting moment at the end. Meanwhile Verlaine is traipsing across Europe looking for her and learning new information- but he also fails to star in this book. There is a rich cast of far more interesting characters popping in and out – all kinds of angel hunters, researchers, those who devote their life’s work to the study and work of Angelology. I did often wonder who was meant to be leading this story, and what is it that is meant to be holding my attention?

Getting right down to it, the big problem is that this book did not deliver what was promised. This book was incredibly dry, slow paced, and boring. It was not at all the ‘high octane tale’ that I was expecting. The characters mostly sit around and talk about theories and ancient history and try to figure out what it all means. I had to force myself to make it through each chapter, each scene of people sitting around talking about theories and sharing nuggets of information. Entire pages and sections devoted to history and theories that ultimately, didn’t really add to the reading experience. I struggled to get invested in the book, and I failed to see the point, or even a clear plot to this story. Things happen, revelations occur, but there was not a satisfying story contained within these pages.

The story was not a flowing tale, but rather jumped awkwardly between locations and people and ultimately there was no satisfying story or adventure to be had in this book alone. A person would definitely need to wait and read the next book (assuming there is one) to find out what will happen with Evangeline or Verlaine or any of the other characters that shared page space in this book.

The author clearly has a vivid imagination and many clever ideas, I wish they had been put together in a more entertaining way. It occurs to me that perhaps the dry painfully slow style is what she was going after, and the publishers were trying to generate excitement with the description given to this story. Either way, the book did not work for me as a reader and I could not find praise to give it beyond that it clearly took extensive research.

Grade: C-

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