On My Wishlist - Angel Edition (May 8th, 2010)

On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It's where I list all the books I desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.

In case you hadn't noticed, angels are the new vampires on the fantasy block.  They can get their smite on like none other, and have serious daddy issues.  But more importantly, getting them into bed?  Biblical.  Personally, I give all the credit to Castiel.

Archangel (Samaria, #1) by Sharon Shinn
Sharon Shinn was on to angels in 1996, and apparently this is the ultimate angel!fantasy book ever. I wish I'd just bought it when I saw it at Forbidden Planet (they are out now) as it is quite hard to find in the UK!

And so it came to pass...

Through science, faith and force of will, the Harmonics carved out for themselves a society that they conceived of as perfect. Diverse peoples held together by respect for each other and the prospect of swift punishment if they disobeyed their laws. Fertile land that embraced a variety of climates and seasons. Angels to guard the mortals and mystics to guard the forbidden knowledge. Jehovah to watch over them all...

Generations later, the armed starship Jehovah stills looms over the planet of Samaria, programmed to unleash its arsenal if peace is not sustained. But an age of corruption has come to the land, threatening that peace and placing the Samarians in grave danger. Their only hope lies in the crowning of a new Archangel. The oracles have chosen for this honor the angel named Gabriel, and further decreed that he must first wed a mortal woman named Rachel.

It is his destiny and hers. And Gabriel is certain that she will greet the news of her betrothal with enthusiasm, and a devotion to duty equal to his own.

Rachel, however, has other ideas...

Heavenly by Jennifer Laurens
Despite the Photoshop101!cover, and the crazy grammar in the summary... I really want this book! Realistic with a bit of a Romeo-and-Juliet love story.

I met someone who changed everything. Matthias. My autistic sister's guardian angel. Honest. Inspiring. Funny. Hot. And immortal.

That was the problem.

What could I do? I did what any other girl would do - I fell in love with him.

Zoe's sister darts in front of cars. Her brother's a pothead. Her parents are so overwhelmed; they don't see Zoe lost in her broken life. Zoe escapes the only way she knows how: partying. Matthias, a guardian sent from Heaven, watches over Zoe's autistic sister. After Zoe is convinced he's legit, angel and lost girl come together in a love that changes destiny. But Heaven on Earth can't last forever.

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
Even if you aren't a fantasy fan, I am pretty sure you've heard of this one. It is everywhere. Trussoni is being dubbed the new Dan Brown (ick), and despite that I really want to read this book!

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.
- Genesis 6:5

Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her father entrusted her to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York. Now, at twenty-three, her discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent plunges Evangeline into a secret history that stretches back a thousand years: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim.

For the secrets these letters guard are desperately coveted by the once-powerful Nephilim, who aim to perpetuate war, subvert the good in humanity, and dominate mankind. Generations of angelologists have devoted their lives to stopping them, and their shared mission, which Evangeline has long been destined to join, reaches from her bucolic abbey on the Hudson to the apex of insular wealth in New York, to the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris and the mountains of Bulgaria.

Rich in history, full of mesmerizing characters, and wondrously conceived, Angelology blends biblical lore, the myth of Orpheus and the Miltonic visions of Paradise Lost into a riveting tale of ordinary people engaged in a battle that will determine the fate of the world.