In the Presence of Angels

Rating:
Summary: tiresome
Review: A book about the magic angels can bring is fine, but this one kept repeating the same concepts about God, His angels and fate. The hero was sooo good that he couldn't possibly be real. On the other hand, the heroine was always in a bad mood. I can't understand how Will could stand her. All in all, it was very tiresome.

Rating:
Summary: tiresome
Review: A very good read told mainly from the hero's viewpoint. On the way home after years in the army, Will stops by his dead friend's place to return letters to the wife.

However, he discovers the wife, child, and farm are in desperate straights. Loving Louisa and the child, Pipe at first site, Will takes on the man-of-all-work job to help out. But can a former Marquis and captain of the army help out the independant Louisa? Especially when she despises anyone who is upper class and from the army to boot? How long can Will hide his past?

The sex scenes are steamy. And the spiritual discussions are good, though bordering on the pendandic. However, the interactions between Louisa, Pipe, and Will are wonderful. But can Will overcome Louisa's sense of betrayal when she finds out who he really is? Read and find out.

Rating:
Summary: Angels, love, and rescuing the fair maiden
Review: A very good read told mainly from the hero's viewpoint. On the way home after years in the army, Will stops by his dead friend's place to return letters to the wife.

However, he discovers the wife, child, and farm are in desperate straights. Loving Louisa and the child, Pipe at first site, Will takes on the man-of-all-work job to help out. But can a former Marquis and captain of the army help out the independant Louisa? Especially when she despises anyone who is upper class and from the army to boot? How long can Will hide his past?

The sex scenes are steamy. And the spiritual discussions are good, though bordering on the pendandic. However, the interactions between Louisa, Pipe, and Will are wonderful. But can Will overcome Louisa's sense of betrayal when she finds out who he really is? Read and find out.

Rating:
Summary: Kingsley knows how to write what readers want
Review: For the past five years on the French front, Lord William Fitzpatrick precariously lives through the letters his friend Val Merriem received from his spouse Louisa. The notes were uplifting as they discussed Val's family. At Waterloo, William holds onto Val who dies in the battle.

A year later, William has left the army to come home, but decides to detour to give Louisa letters that Val possessed. When he reaches Broadhurst Farm, William is shocked by the dilapidated conditions that are nothing like the utopia he thought. Louisa is a bitter person and her father acts like he suffers from battle fatigue. Only Val's little girl Pip shows any energy. William accepts a farm hand job and begins to pump life back into a family that Val destroyed before he joined the army. Louisa and William fall in love, but when she learns the truth about his identity, their relationship will end.

IN THE PRESENCE OF ANGELS is an interesting, character-driven Regency romance. The cast propels the story line as each adult suffers from a traumatic situation that has left them with demons. The lead couple is an endearing duo and the support cast brings out their better qualities. Katherine Kingsley provides sub-genre fans with a warm romance that will be cherished for its insightful look at the era.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Rather boring
Review: I agree with one of the reviwers....this book is rather tiresome. The hero does not really have the qualities I prefer in a, well, hero, but he's quite okay. Now, the heroine is another different matter.... she's always in a sour mood, always snapping, always bad-tempered. A harridan. I got irritated with her. Very slow pace, long-winded - I found myself skipping pages, just to get to know the end.

Rating:
Summary: Into the use of too many words
Review: I had a hard time forcing myself to finish this story. I skipped over half of it. The words did not flow well in this story. The characters did not speak as true persons would speak. Their lines were written as though they were to be read and not spoken.

I did not feel any chemistry between Louisa and Will. She was forever nasty to him. He was always too understanding of her nastiness. Honestly, I could not understand what he saw in her. After he realized she was not the woman of her letters, it was not clear why he even bothered with her. Will was a nice man, but he inspired no passion. I felt he was too weak and not hero material. Their love scenes were silly, the descriptions were so uncreative and not in the least passion inspiring enough, "His warm lips tasting her until her knees went weak and her entire body shook with longing." How silly, the lust just is not there for me.

I think the author used this novel to preach her opinions on angels and God. Really it was all so silly. Will saw more angels than the Profits I think.

One more critisism, Pip, Louisa's little 9 year old, spoke far too wisely for a child of her age. She was far to mature and experienced for one so young. In one scene she says "John Henry has a prodidious imagination." Really how many adults would say such a thing?

I could go on and on with critism, but I won't. Suffice it to say I skipped through to the end because I just kept getting too embarrased for the author. The book was so amateur. How she ever became a best selling author scares me. I need to be more careful on choosing books simple for this reason.

Rating:
Summary: OK, but not great
Review: I love Katherine Kingsley, but this book did not have her usual endearing characters, and the plot was muddled. Ms. Kingsley is a very gifted writer, and her expertise in writing prose and her talent for fleshing out secondary characters are the reasons to buy this book; I have rated all her other novels with five stars. Though this book has an interesting and imaginative premise, the heroine is irritatingly stubborn and the hero is just a little too saintly to be compelling. Ms. Kingsley's use of spiritual themes in her past books were sweet and secondary to the plot and characterizations. This book seems to be more about angels than about the relationship of the characters or the difficulties facing them. Although Katherine Kingsley is still a first-rate author, buy this book only if you have nothing better to do on a rainy day.

Rating:
Summary: This one is marred by an irritable heroine
Review: Katherine Kingsley has written a few of my all-time favorite romances including the unforgettable "No Sweeter Heaven" so I began this book with very high expectations. Expectations that disappointingly were not met once the story really got going.

Major Lord William Fizpatrick is sick of war and death. After his best friend Val dies in his arms he resigns his commission and heads home. But first he makes a pit stop to see Louisa, Val's widow, to bring her the letters she'd written to Val. In those letters Louisa had vividly described her happy home life and Will, who never had a happy home of his own, fell just a little bit in love with her.

Louisa wasn't honest in her letters, though, and she and Val had had anything but the idyllic love life that she hinted at in her letters. Val left Louisa and their young daughter Pip in dire straits and Louisa only wrote the letters in an attempt to soothe her pride and to make Val feel a little guilt at his desertion. As a result of her doomed marriage Louisa has hardened her heart and become quite grumpy.

When Will arrives she mistakes him for a handyman she so desperately needs. Will becomes tongue-tied by her beauty and pretends to be a handyman named "Will Cutter". He sees this as a chance to become free of his past and longs to spend more time with Louisa.

This setup was often emotional and held much promise but the romance that followed did not live up to its potential. Louisa is a screechy, unbendable and mostly unlikeable heroine right from the get-go. She is desperate to keep Will at arm's length and spends most of the book treating him to harsh, uncalled-for tongue-lashings. After a few of these outbursts I was really shocked when he decided to stick around. But stick around he did, and emotionally abused he was.

Will was a great hero, and the sole reason that I continued to read the story. He's kind and has a fantastic sense of humor that really comes in handy when he's dealing with Louisa's red-hot temper. Louisa eventually warm up and the plot takes a temporary turn for the better. The story becomes entertaining, moving and highly sensual for a bit but then things begin to slide downhill again. Several annoying plot twists occur including a frustrating and simple to resolve misunderstanding, a catastrophe where Louisa acts in a embarrassingly pathetic fashion and a three-month long separation that occurs near the end of the story.

Despite the plot contrivances and irritating heroine this book had some genuinely touching moments, some way better than average love scenes and a beautiful spiritual element. Sadly, though, there were too many problems for me to give "In The Presence of Angels" anything more than a lukewarm rating. But if you're willing to overlook the problems I outlined in order to meet a great hero you may want to give it a try.

Rating:
Summary: Faith and Love
Review: Major Lord William Fitzpatrick has the gift of knowing when he is in the presence of angels. A man of faith at odds with his military career, he befriends Val, a man who over the years shares with him his wife's correspondence. Will develops an idealized vision of what Val's life must have been like, and falls in love with that vision. Val dies in his arms at Waterloo, and Will leaves the Army a year later, returning to England with some trepidation in hopes of reconciling with his estranged twin brother. Fate decrees otherwise-Val finds himself sidetracked to the farm of Val's widow, where he gradually discovers how much of a gulf exists between his fantasy and the reality of the life his dead friend lived. The constant in his experience is Louisa, Val's widow, with whom he falls deeply in love. Louisa has encased herself in layers and layers of cynicism as she struggles to repair the damage her marriage did to her family. Will and Louisa stand in counterpoint to one another, he the wounded optimist, and she the bitter, angry pessimist. KK's story takes us through their transformation into lovers, and the impact of their love on their lives.

This story kept my attention so thoroughly that it was 1 AM before I realized how long I had been reading. The characters - Will moreso - think and talk about God without apology, neutrality, or embarrassment. I found Will's faith humbling. The story does juxtapose spiritual themes with explicit sexuality, and it is possible that this could be uncomfortable for some readers. However, I found that it gave the book more depth, because it required me to think a little more, and in a different way, about the nature of divine goodness and human love. I recommend this novel highly.

Rating:
Summary: Too many angels...not enough love.
Review: The concept for this novel is so great it makes me smile thinking about it. He fell in love with her through her letters and stays on as her man of all works. The only problem is she isn't the person in her letters. She was putting on a front to make her husband feel guilty. And it was really weird that Will can see angels. And he kept having discussions on angels, that got old real fast. The story wasn't anything like I thought it would be and I was sorely disappointed.