The Angel's Cut - Elizabeth Knox

I was rather dubious about reading this offering seeing as it is the sequel of a book I consider one of the best I've ever read, and sequels can be notoriously disappointing.

I had actually planned to re-read The Vintner's Luck first but decided against it as I wanted to not have the reading of this tale to be altered in any way by my opinion of another book - which is an awesome book by the way and 'read it' is my highly professional opinion.

So we pick up about 100 years after we first meet the angel Xas in The Vintner's Luck and he is still quite shaken over the death of his lover and determined to live in the air to try to fill the hole in his heart and also the absence of his other love, his wings, which naughty Lucifer [spoiler alert] cut off in the first book.

With the advent of flying machines in the early 1900's Xas finds himself more able to indulge in his desire to live high above the earth and we follow his adventures from a German zeppellin scout during World War 1 to an acrobatic dare-devil in 1920's France to the budding Hollywood scene in Los Angeles in the 1930's and beyond.  But the actual adventures aren't as important as the character interactions.

Xas befriends a pioneering black woman pilot, also a heavily scarred film editor, and begins an affair with a young and upcoming movie director.  The peripheral characters play a huge role as well onto the lives of our main protaganists, most important would be a couple of brothers in the film industry, Lucifer the almighty angel, and none other than God, who never utters a word but his presence is strongly felt nonetheless.

Yes, this book tells a tale of certain characters but their story is really just background noise to what Xas is finding out about himself and the humans he cares for and the human emotions he fights hard to feel.  The dialogue between Xas and Lucifer dotter the book sporadically but I felt their weight was the true binding that held this story together.

It isn't as deep a story as The Vintner's Luck and indeed, you don't need to have read the first book to enjoy and understand this second offering, but although I enjoyed the book I couldn't help but thinking that something was missing from the story, something perhaps that a third book may contain but that is just pure supposition on my part.

Even though I enjoyed the book, I'm really not sure wether to recommend it or not.  If you are open to homosexuality and discussions about the creation and heaven and earth in a biblical sense then you would find this book okay but I am sure there are a group of people out there that would be offended by the ideas here.  I know a few who were quite upset by The Vintner's Luck which I found such a good read so I am not one to presume to understand to whom this book would appeal.

I think that the slightly unusual and controversial will appeal to a few and you know who you are so give it a go.  Also, if you're already a fan of Elizabeth Knox then it may be worth a look (I go hot and cold on her - Vintner's Luck is one of my favourite books and Billie's Kiss is one of the worst books I've ever read so I go all schizophrenic on this one at times).

A good thing to point out is that this book is a stand-alone novel in that you don't have to have read The Vintner's Luck to understand or enjoy the story.  And kiwi writers are always good to support so there is definitely that.  I'd love to be a kiwi writer someday and local support would mean the world to me.  At the end of the day, read it if you've got the time, but not because it will change your life.  Who knows, maybe the third one is the charm... although I suspect the first book was the life changing story and is just too hard to beat about now.