Goodness. That’s quite a story.

While A Great and Terrible Beauty primarily focused around the boarding school life with hints of a relatively benign magic (with a fair few hints of darkness under the surface), Rebel Angels expands the world both to the greater society of the time and delves much deeper into the dark, creepy bits of the Realms–not the least of which is Pippa. Dead… but not? It’s a way to deal with loss, but there’s no way this is possible going to end well.

One one hand, the twists at the end are interesting and it does shine a light both at the darkness in our world and in theirs, which is all the better. The bits in England are interesting enough to me, but I imagine that it’s pretty standard historical romance stuff. The bits in the Realms are… a bit of a kitchen sink. Nothing ever really makes sense, which can feel extra magical and fantastical, but in this case mostly makes it feel disjointed. And when the major conflict revolves around a trio of teen girls literally staying on the path and listening to what they’re told…

Well, you can imagine how that goes.

We’ll give the third a try just because I’ve made it this far, but it’s certainly not the easiest read.