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Shannon 's Reviews > Rebel Angels
Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle, #2)
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I think the story is getting even more interesting, and also a bit sad. It didn't take me long to read it either! Truly, these are such fun books, and the world behind the door of light is getting more and more interesting. In this sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty, set two months after, a new, mysterious teacher has arrived at Spence, three ghostly girls are trying to give Gemma a message, and Kartik tells Gemma she must find the Temple and bind the magic that she let loose when she broke the runes. But it is also Christmas, and Gemma is spending the holiday in London with her family. Felicity has invited Ann to spend it with her family, enabling them to take trips back to the Realms to look for the Temple.
Gemma has a new interest to distract her: Simon Middleton, son of a Viscount, a handsome young man who has taken quite a shine to her but whose methods - getting her drunk on absenthe - leave a lot to be desired. Thankfully, not all Gemma's judgements of character are crappy. I am sad about Miss Moore, though. I liked her. I also like the continuing touches of historical positioning: the men digging up the streets in London to lay cables for electricity and get rid of the old gaslamps; the snide remark about Felicity having to marry an American because she's too head-strong and vulgar for a good British man; and the Underground as it once was, before it too turned electric.
The usual places of gothic horror - the boarding school and the insane asylum - are clean and cheery in this story. Darker things lurk closer to home, in Gemma's father's opium-addiction, in the mysterious Rakshana that Kartik is a part of, in Felicity's horrible secret. The hideous creatures hunting for them in the Realms are dangerous and terrifying, but so is the opium-den, the treacherous Rakshana who want to make Gemma bind the magic of the Temple to them and then kill her, and an unlocked door to a child's bedroom.
The third and final book is not out until Christmas, I hear, but worth waiting for.
Gemma has a new interest to distract her: Simon Middleton, son of a Viscount, a handsome young man who has taken quite a shine to her but whose methods - getting her drunk on absenthe - leave a lot to be desired. Thankfully, not all Gemma's judgements of character are crappy. I am sad about Miss Moore, though. I liked her. I also like the continuing touches of historical positioning: the men digging up the streets in London to lay cables for electricity and get rid of the old gaslamps; the snide remark about Felicity having to marry an American because she's too head-strong and vulgar for a good British man; and the Underground as it once was, before it too turned electric.
The usual places of gothic horror - the boarding school and the insane asylum - are clean and cheery in this story. Darker things lurk closer to home, in Gemma's father's opium-addiction, in the mysterious Rakshana that Kartik is a part of, in Felicity's horrible secret. The hideous creatures hunting for them in the Realms are dangerous and terrifying, but so is the opium-den, the treacherous Rakshana who want to make Gemma bind the magic of the Temple to them and then kill her, and an unlocked door to a child's bedroom.
The third and final book is not out until Christmas, I hear, but worth waiting for.
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