Angel Eyes

So I'd been hearing a lot of buzz about Shannon Dittemore's Angel Eyes. The Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour, of which I used to be a member, did this book recently. So I decided I should check this one out and see what it's all about.

The story is about Brielle Matthews, a young woman who has been pretty much forced to move back home to the small town of Stratus. Brielle had left town to be a dancer and a model, but a tragedy around her best friend Ali has forced her to return home. She's haunted by the guilt of Ali's death and, as a result, feels perpetually cold.

But then she meets Jake Shield, the new kid in town. Jake practically radiates heat. At first, Brielle doesn't want anything to do with him . . . or anyone else, for that matter. But Jake is persistent. He's always around, offering his heat and maybe more.

Pretty soon, in spite of herself, Brielle finds herself warming to the mysterious Jake. And a good thing too. Because without realizing it, Brielle has stumbled into a dangerous situation, one that stretches from this world into one that can only be seen by angel eyes.

Okay, I'll say this up front. I thought the chapters told from Brielle's perspective were really great. The prose was almost poetic. And the dialogue was great also. Dittemore was extremely creative in the way that she put this story together and the way she portrayed spiritual warfare.

And yet . . .

And yet this is another spiritual warfare book, angels taking on demons in unseen realms. It's ground that's been covered before. Yes, Dittemore adds some interesting twists to it, but it didn't really make me sit up and take notice.

There were also some sections of very lengthy dialogue (more like monologues) that kind of threw me. And this may sound harsh, but Brielle as a character kind of bugged me. It's almost like she was just a whisker shy of crossing over the border into being conceited. Or not. I'm not sure what it was about her, but I had a hard time relating to her.

This isn't to say that it's a bad book. Not at all. A lot of people have read it and really enjoyed it. Perhaps I'm too old and the wrong gender. Whatever the case, it was good, but I'm not lining up to purchase the next book in the series. Maybe some day, but not when I've got somewhere around 50+ books in my to-be-read pile and waiting on my Kindle.