Review SHADOWS IN THE SILENCE by COURTNEY ALLISON MOULTON @HarperTeen

Book Description

Release Date: January 29, 2013 | Series: Angelfire (Book 3)

Your strength in heart and hand will fall. . . .
Ellie knows that the darkest moments are still to come, and she has everything to fight for:

She must fight for Will.
The demonic have resorted to their cruelest weapons to put Will in mortal danger, and Ellie makes an unlikely alliance to save him and to stop Lilith and Sammael, who seek to drown the world in blood and tear a hole into Heaven.

She must fight for humanity.
As the armies of Hell rise and gather for the looming End of Days, Ellie and her band of allies travel to the world’s darkest and most ancient regions in her quest to come into her full glory as the archangel Gabriel.

And Ellie must save herself.
Her humanity withers beneath the weight of her cold archangel power, but Ellie must hold tight to who she is and who she loves as she prepares for the ultimate battle for Heaven and Earth.

In this final installment in the Angelfire trilogy, Courtney Allison Moulton brings her dark world of epic battles and blistering romance to a blazing bright conclusion.

About the Author

Courtney Allison Moulton lives in Michigan, where she is a photographer and spends all her free time riding and showing horses. She is the author of Angelfire and Wings of the Wicked, and she is hard at work on her next novel.

SOURCE:  AROUND THE WORLD ARC TOURS

MY THOUGHTS
ADORED IT, LOVED IT, SAD IT IS OVER

+++slight spoilers after the first paragraph - especially if you haven't read the first two! +++

I seriously questioned myself when I first started reading Angelfire.  It wasn't my type of book, I had read lots of books similar to this, and on and on.  I was a still bit intrigued and so I read the second one Wings of the Wicked  which nicely picked up the pace and got me more involved with Ellie and Will. OH MY!  The conclusion totally rocked! I swear this was like a video game in book form with non stop action, serious butt kicking and enough romance to keep me sighing.  In this conclusion, Moulton really won me over and I am going to have to reread Angelfire to figure out why it didn't click with me at first.  I feel like *I* did something wrong to not get that book at first after reading this one.

So Ellie has really come into her own with her powers and can now wield her weapon with the best of them.  She is no longer the unsure girl and knows what she wants and had begun to accept the support of Cadan (interesting familial twist there!).  Although this could have seriously gone into the dreaded love triangle, it stopped just short.  Will really needs to loosen up a bit and stop doing everything by the book.  Thankfully by the end of this one, Ellie does just that for him and forces him to be a bit more open.  I love a strong girl!

Ah, the ending, so hard to take at first but I was really happy with the outcome and I think you will be too! Yeah, I can't let you know how it ends since that would ruin it for everyone but take my word, you will swoon on the last page.  I am really going to miss Ellie and the other supporting cast. Maybe there is an opening for Cadan to have a spin off.  I adore him and would love to get to know him a bit better.   Parents:  video game like violence and some serious kissing.  I look forward to more from this author now!

REVIEW: Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton

Book Description

Series: Angelfire | Publication Date: January 31, 2012

Life as the Preliator is harder than Ellie ever imagined. Balancing real life with the responsibility of being Heaven's warrior is a challenge for Ellie. Her relationship with Will has become all business, though they both long for each other. And now that the secret of who she really is has come out, so have Hell's strongest reapers. Grown bold and more vicious, the demonic threaten her in the light of day and stalk her in the night. She's been warned. Cadan, a demonic reaper, comes to her with information of Bastian's new plan to destroy Ellie's soul and use an ancient relic to wake all the souls of the damned and unleash them upon humanity. As she fights to stay ahead of them, the revelations of those closest to her awaken a dark power within Ellie that threatens to destroy everything - including herself. She'll be betrayed. Treachery comes even from those whom she loves, and Ellie is broken by the deaths of those who stood beside her in this Heavenly war. Still, she must find a way to save the world, herself, and her love for Will. If she fails, there will be Hell to pay.

About the Author

Courtney Allison Moulton lives in Michigan, where she is a photographer and spends all her free time riding and showing horses. She has always loved reading about ancient mythologies, studying dead languages, and telling scary, romantic stories. Angelfire is her debut novel.

Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (January 31, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062002368
• ISBN-13: 978-0062002365

SOURCE: AROUND THE WORLD ARC TOURS

MY THOUGHTS
LIKED IT

Ellie is still trying to have a normal high school life while hunting demons and practicing fighting techniques with her Guardian, Will.  She longs for a relationship with Will and like any teen age girl, moons over him.  As bits and pieces of her past lives come forward, she learns that a relationship with Will just isn't in the cards because he is forbidden to be anything more than her protector.  The evil demons are becoming more and more aggressive, attacking in daylight and out for blood.  Literally out for Ellie's blood.  That part about her blood is truly an interesting twist towards the end of the story.

I enjoyed this first in this series and it reminded me a bit of Buffy and there are sparks of brilliance in the dialogue but the whole story was a bit slow for me.  I really like the characters and when the action kicks into high gear, it is a wonderful thing!  Ellie also has a new admirer in the form of a demon named Cadan.  He is dark and full of fun where Will is light and sweetness.  I can see he is a real match for Ellie since Will is pretty much off limits for her.  Of course there is an epic battle and you are left wondering who the victor will be in this fight between good and evil since the ending is not complete where it leaves off.

REVIEW: Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

Description

First there are nightmares.
Every night Ellie is haunted by terrifying dreams of monstrous creatures that are hunting her, killing her.
Then come the memories.
When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. His attention is intense and romantic, and Ellie feels like her soul has known him for centuries. On her seventeenth birthday, on a dark street at midnight, Will awakens Ellie's power, and she knows that she can fight the creatures that stalk her in the grim darkness. Only Will holds the key to Ellie's memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream.
Now she must hunt.
Ellie has power that no one can match, and her role is to hunt and kill the reapers that prey on human souls. But in order to survive the dangerous and ancient battle of the angels and the Fallen, she must also hunt for the secrets of her past lives and truths that may be too frightening to remember.

About the Author

Courtney Allison Moulton lives in Michigan, where she is a photographer and spends all her free time riding and showing horses. She has always loved reading about ancient mythologies, studying dead languages, and telling scary, romantic stories. Angelfire is her debut novel.

Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (February 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062002325
• ISBN-13: 978-0062002327

SOURCE:  AROUND THE WORLD ARC TOURS

MY THOUGHTS
LIKED IT

I received this book at no cost from Around the World ARC Tours in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first book in a new trilogy about angels and demons and there was a ton of set up for the next two books.  I loved the snarky tone of the characters and found Ellie to be a likable lead.  Ellie is having horrible nightmares and when those nightmares turn out to be real life, she finds herself to be a warrior in a fight between good and evil.  Will comes into Ellie's life and professes to know everything about her, but doesn't really tell her much.  He makes her jump through hoops and forces her to really work to get a little tidbit of information.  It is only when her life is in mortal danger that he does some mind trick and lets her in on the secret.  If he is her protector, I think she might be better off taking chances on her own, but maybe this is exactly what Will wants.

I had some trouble getting into the story.  I thought the plot was a little bit slow and I really had to force myself to read it.  In the end, I was glad I finished it, but I really wish that it moved a little bit faster for me.  This may just be me and I may not have been in the mood for a story like this.  It happens.  I will read the next one in the series since I did like most of the characters and I really hope that Ellie develops into someone kick ass.  Will has possibilities as well to become a truly magnificent lead and I really hope he gets a sense of humor.  Parents:  There are some instances of alcohol use, mentions of sexual situations, a little bad language, so this one is best suited for teens over 14.