Title: Breath of Angel
Series:
Author: Karyn Henley
Genre: Adult Supernatural Fantasy
Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Breath of Angel:
The prick of the thorn drew
blood, but Melaia smiled. The last ramble rose of the season was well worth a
pierced thumb. She carefully drew the blossom from the vine that clung to the
side of the temple. As she breathed its rich, sweet scent, she sensed someone
watching and looked up, expecting to see one of the novice priestesses. She saw
only dry leaves skittering across the flagstones of the walled courtyard, along
with a black feather, no doubt from a bird scavenging seeds in the woodpile.
Then a haggard young man
stepped through the gate, and Melaia drew back. The chill autumn breeze riffled
the edge of his dirt-stained cloak, revealing the corner of a journey pack and
the hilt of a dagger.
Melaia gave him a tentative
nod.
“I’ve come—” His voice was
dirt dry. He wiped his fist across his mouth.
“I’ll fetch water.” Melaia
tucked the rose into her waist sash and headed for the stone urn by the arched
doorway. “Travelers are always welcome at our temple. We’ve pallets if you wish
to stay the night.” She would have to check with the high priestess, but Hanni
rarely turned away weary travelers.
A priestess witnesses a stranger’s murder, pulling her into
the center of an ancient feud.
Craft: Breath of Angel is an engaging tale of the
supernatural against a fantasy backdrop.
From the opening pages on, the plot rivets the reader with intense
action and some unexpected twists.
Many of the characters are likeable, even
charming, and yet shaded with deception or uncertain motives so that you never
know who to quite trust. This unpredictability increases the tension even
further, and complex relationships play out before a typical medieval world
touched with the wildness of the supernatural.
Overall, Breath of Angel is a well-crafted novel that my
storyteller’s heart relished.
Content:
Unfortunately, the pleasure of the story was largely crushed under weighty
concerns about the content.
The main theme (learning to forgive, including those who
have betrayed your trust) is sound. While I might have wished for the theme to
be mined further, what is presented squares with Scripture. Beyond this,
however, my concerns multiplied. They are mainly concentrated in two areas.
The first main area deals
with the portrayal of angels. Up front I admit this is an area which I
haven’t study in great depth in the Bible, and my knowledge is limited. Also, I
understand some creative liberties must be taken because we don’t know much
about angels. However, the end product should still conform to the truth we do
know. Creativity should be reserved for filling in the blanks. This becomes
even more important since the terminology and certain discussions (such as
about the stars’ beltway) seems to link this fantasy world to the real world
and therefore to real angels.
What I find instead are distortions
that seem to play up the obscure facts and minimize the better established.
For example, angels can produce children with humans if the “sons of
God” in Genesis 6 refers to angels. And that is an if. But then to deduce from
there that angels mate with angels to produce offspring? That seems a bit of
a leap, and I know of no proof that angels can or do mate among themselves. In
fact, it is probably more likely they don’t, as they are spiritual beings,
having no fleshly body.
This would also cause me to draw the conclusion that they
cannot be killed either, as portrayed in chapter 1. For while angels may take
on a human appearance, that doesn’t mean they take on an earthly body too. Even
God Himself had to be “born of a woman” to be able to die, though He took on a
human appearance at times before Christ’s Incarnation.
Nor does this deal with other issues raised—like whether
angelic beings have gender (most likely not, and even when they take on a
gender, it’s always male except in Zechariah 5, which has other matters to
consider) or the problem of wings (e.g. the six-winged seraphim in Isaiah 6 vs.
the wingless messengers in Genesis 19). And can you really justify a supposedly
good angelic being who bears children by two different men, both of whom are
alive during the same period? Yes, you can rationalize it within the story
context—but then again, Adam and Eve rationalized their eating of the Tree. The ability to rationalize an action does not make it
right.
So issue compounds upon issue. While little of this may
directly contradict Scripture, it seems to compose a distorted view of what it
does teach. And truthfully, it causes me to ask a hard question, the kind I
don’t like to ask: if the created is not presented in a trustworthy way, can
any words spoken about the Creator be trusted? I honestly don’t know.
And this brings me to the second area of concern. However,
this review is already of considerable length, so I will postpone that
discussion until my upcoming review of Eye of the Sword, as it applies there as well as here.
Summary:
Breath of
Angel presents a well-crafted story, the kind that makes content
more easily absorbed. When the core is solid, this is great; when the content
is questionable or erroneous, this can be very dangerous. Therefore, the
blurred edges of this story cause me grave concern, and I must recommend great caution in approaching it, best avoided by
those lacking discernment and/or extensive biblical knowledge.
Ratings:
Craft—4, Content—2, Overall—2.6 out of 5 stars
2 comments:
Good review.
I see your concerns about the portrayal of angels, and had those same concerns when reading the second book, Eye of the Sword, but I tried to look at the novel as what it was: fantasy. I'll certainly not be using it for Bible study materials, but it's a solid story.
Your concerns mirrored my concerns with Eye of the Sword almost exactly, though I haven't read Breath of Angel. I wonder if we both reveal similar additional concerns about Eye of the Sword tomorrow! (My rating system, however, doesn't expressly rate the Christian content, so my overall rating may come out differently from yours.)
Great review.
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