Review: A Shimmer of Angels by Lisa M. Basso

Sixteen-year-old Rayna sees angels, and has the medication and weekly therapy sessions to prove it. Now, in remission, Rayna starts fresh at a new school, lands a new job, and desperately tries for normalcy. She ignores signs that she may be slipping into the world she has tried so hard to climb out of. But these days, it’s more than just hallucinations that keep Rayna up at night. Students are dying, and she may be the only one who can stop it. Can she keep her job, her sanity, and her friends from dying at the hands of angels she can't admit to seeing?

Title: A Shimmer of Angels

Series: Angel Sigh #1
Published January 29th 2013 by Month9Books, LLC
ISBN: 0985029420 (ISBN13: 9780985029425)

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I loved the cover of this book, it actually was the reason that I decided to get the book, and I'm glad to say the next two covers look beautiful as well. 

I guess part of me is conflicted, while I wasn't extremely fond of the first half of the book, after a while I started to get into the second half, more towards the end of it. I know there is a good chance that I'll like the next book much more than this one.

Rayna, the main character, is extremely jumpy, a loner, and always worried about her sanity, I had a hard him connecting with that. Her mother is dead, her father isn't great with people, and her sister, Laylah, doesn't seem to like her much, I could see why she wouldn't be a happy person. She is always running away from Camel, an angel in a few of her classes, when  maybe confronting him would probably be the best way to solve things. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying, when the first death happens, on the same day Cam arrives, she automatically jumps to the conclusion that he had something to do with it. Ray did annoy me at some points, but by the end she starts to get stronger, and smarter.

She does have one good friend, Lee, who makes many Dr. Who references (a show I've never watched, so that threw me off too), loves chocolate, and is good with computers. She mentions, very early in the book, that he doesn't know that she's been in and out of mental hospitals for the past three years, part of me thought she should tell him, but I understood why she wouldn't want to. I must admit I was pretty excited that they were just friends, he even tries to set her up with another guy at one point. 

Cam and Kade were very interesting angels. I found Kade story to be very...different. Makes me wonder how much I actually like his character. Cam was complicated, fighting between his feelings and the rules, but I found him to be barely there, so I guess I'll decide how I feel about both of them in the next book, which doesn't come out for a long time, sadly. I can happily say that I've never read a book where the person seeing the angels was thrown into a mental hospital because of it, that was a very interesting twist.

I really enjoyed the plot, I had a hard time guessing what was going to happen next. I really didn't expect the ending, but I was ecstatic it happened. I thought the pacing was fine, and I hope that Lee makes more appearances in the next book, which comes out in January, 2014. Way too long of a wait. If you decide to read it, don't give up before the first half is over, I truly believe it gets better by the end. 

“I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world.” ― Haruki Murakami

Book Nerd and Proud, 

K.G.