Waiting on Wednesday (149)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that highlights future releases that we are excitedly anticipating.


By Susan Ee
Publication Date: May 12, 2015

End of Days is the explosive conclusion to Susan Ee’s bestselling Penryn & the End of Days trilogy.

After a daring escape from the angels, Penryn and Raffe are on the run. They’re both desperate to find a doctor who can reverse the twisted changes inflicted by the angels on Raffe and Penryn’s sister. As they set off in search of answers, a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all.

When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. As unlikely alliances form and strategies shift, who will emerge victorious? Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other.










By Chanel Cleeton
Publication Date: May 19, 2015

The author of I See London sets her sights on Washington, D. C., with a sexy new series about three sisters, the secrets they keep, and a powerful blog with a knack for exposing scandals...

Jackie Gardner knows all about dirty little secrets. The illegitimate daughter of one of the most influential senators in Washington, D.C., she grew up surrounded by the scandals and shadows of politics. Now that she's landed an internship with a powerful political consulting firm, she's determined to launch her career and take this city by storm.

William Andrew Clayton was born for politics. He knows the drill: work hard, play discreetly, and at all costs, avoid scandal. At twenty-six, his campaign for the Virginia State Senate is the first step to cementing his future. It's time for him to settle down, to find the perfect political spouse. He needs a Jackie Kennedy, not a Marilyn... 

When Jackie meets Will in the bar of the Hay-Adams Hotel, sparks fly. But the last thing Will needs is to be caught in a compromising position, and an affair with a political candidate could cost Jackie her career. When what began as one steamy night, becomes a passion neither one of them can walk way from, they must decide if what they have is really love, or just another dirty little secret...


By Brian Katcher
Publication Date: May 19, 2015

The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak is Stonewall Book Award-winning author Brian Katcher’s hilarious he said/she said romance about two teens recovering from heartbreak and discovering themselves on an out-of-this-world accidental first date.

It all begins when Ana Watson's little brother, Clayton, secretly ditches the quiz bowl semifinals to go to the Washingcon sci-fi convention on what should have been a normal, résumé-building school trip.

If slacker Zak Duquette hadn't talked up the geek fan fest so much, maybe Clayton wouldn't have broken nearly every school rule or jeopardized Ana’s last shot at freedom from her uptight parents.

Now, teaming up with Duquette is the only way for Ana to chase down Clayton in the sea of orcs, zombies, bikini-clad princesses, Trekkies, and Smurfs. After all, one does not simply walk into Washingcon.

But in spite of Zak's devil-may-care attitude, he has his own reasons for being as lost as Ana-and Ana may have more in common with him than she thinks. Ana and Zak certainly don’t expect the long crazy night, which begins as a nerdfighter manhunt, to transform into so much more… 

World After (Penryn & The End of Days #2) by Susan Ee

* * * * *

In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what's left of the modern world.

When a group of people capture Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?

Being that I'd originally read and written the review for Angelfall two Christmases ago, (I had posted it until yesterday), I’d forgotten how chaotic and devastating those final moments were. World After picks up from there with Penryn separated from Raffe. She’s wondering how he’s coping and he most likely believes she’s dead. She doesn’t have the luxury to dwell on him so much as she still has to look after her hapless mother and unrecognizable sister and lead them to safety.

This is a terrifying world where people are left to their own devices to survive. Penryn is working so hard to keep it together in this harsh reality especially in the face of her mother’s insults and her sister’s plight. Paige is almost unrecognizable physically thanks to some graphic experiments that the angels performed on her. Penryn has become fiercer about protecting her sister even though she can’t quite bring herself to accept what Paige is transforming into. It’s easy to forget that Penryn is merely a seventeen- old child who needs to be taken care of herself. She is in constant survival mode with every movement is calculated. It also doesn’t help that people seem to believe that she’s some sort of savior who can rescue them. All she wants to do is take care of her family but she is always at that fork in the road where she has to decide if she’s just going to watch her back or be the good Samaritan.

Raffe and Penryn aren’t even together for most of the book except through “flashbacks” provided by Raffe’s sword that’s now in Penryn’s safekeeping. The sword not only provides Penryn with insight into Raffe’s mindset, it also keeps him close to her. She has to admit that she feels something for him and she almost admonishes herself for having a crush on someone – an archangel no less – when there is so much more at stake during this troublesome time.

It’s once Raffe and Penryn finally see each other  that the sparks go wild. Everything is said in a single stare as everything comes to a standstill. I was so thrilled that I was applauding their reunion! It’s also when they finally encounter each other that the weight she carries is truly felt. As they’re escaping a party gone terribly wrong, (what do you expect with out-of-control angels?), Penryn allows herself this one time to be someone in need of rescue. It’s her moment to have a break:

“But for now, for just this moment, I let myself be a seventeen-year-old girl in a strong guy’s arms. I even let some of the what-ifs seep in, the kind of possibilities that might have blossomed between us in the World Before. Just for a little while. Before I carefully fold my dreams away into the vault in my head.”

It's quite sad whenever she refers to life as either the World Before or World After. That sense of hopelessness and loss rings so loudly. She doesn't want to be a hero, she just wants to be a teenager. And when Raffe comes back into the picture, we get a few glimpses of what that teenager may be like. With him around, she regains her sense of humor and it’s nice to see her be playful side even if for a fleeting second. They clearly mean something to each other but neither is willing to reveal too much. In fact, their relationship status could say “it’s complicated” and it would be the truth.

World After is masterfully written. I am in awe of this tragic and complex world featuring our annihilated planet at the whim and mercy of intricate angel politics. Some characters are complete live-wires ready to snap, others are on the cusp of insanity and the rest are simply toiling away, lost and broken. Penryn and Raffe are unlikely partners in this war to regain a home and a future. By the end, Susan Ee does it again with an astonishing cliffhanger that left me clutching at all the mad ideas in my head as to what’s going to happen next. 

~ Bel

Angelfall (Penryn & The End of Days series) by Susan Ee

* * * *

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with Raffe, an injured enemy angel. Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco, where Penryn will risk everything to rescue her sister and Raffe will put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

How many stories about angels can there be and how can you tell a story that’s different enough to stand out from a crowded genre? Angelfall does a surprising job of doing that well.

As you’ve read in the description above, the world is in ruins and the angels who’ve descended to earth aren’t exactly the harbingers of peace.  Penryn is trying to escape to safer ground with her mother who’s not all there and her sister, Paige who’s in a wheelchair.  They don’t get too far when they stumble upon a fight among a group of angels. Trying to stay out of sight, they witness one of the angels beaten and bloodied and at the end if the fight, his wings are cut off. Unfortunately, the other angels notice Penryn and her family and make off with her sister.  Her hysterical mother runs off leaving Penryn to figure out how to rescue her sister.  She decides to rescue the battered angel and his wings and use him to find Paige.

An outraged Penryn feels nothing but disgust for this angel that she is forced to nurse back to health for the sole purpose of finding her sister. When he finally comes to, we get to meet a very snarky, dark humored angel named Raffe. Not exactly friendly yet not completely douchey. Holding his wings as collateral, she and Raffe form a reluctant alliance based on need – she needs her sister, he needs his wings. As they travel together, making their way through the chaos that has been wreaked, they learn more about each other but are still on their guard.

I was a bit skeptical about reading Angelfall because seriously, another freaking angel novel? But it just so happened to be there at the library and I’m a sucker for books on display. So imagine how surprised I was to find myself enjoying it! Penryn is a firecracker and when she and Raffe spar it’s plenty entertaining.  And Susan Ee does offer a fun twist to the whole angel lore where the angels are more mob-like than saviors with a penchant for sci-fi terror. There’s a political power play among them that’s hinted at but not elaborated on yet. 

Angelfall does end abruptly but with the political power struggle and infighting laid out, there’s no doubt that the second installment will see plenty of action and turmoil. Just what we asked for!

~ Bel

* Book two in the series, World After, will be reviewed tomorrow.