Good battles evil in Danielle Trussoni’s new novel about angels
Reviewed by Gabrielle Pantera
“My great-aunt Drusilla is a Franciscan Sister of Adoration living at a convent in the Midwest,” says Angelology author Danielle Trussoni. “I had a vague notion that I wanted to write a book that involved the Sisters, but at that time I had no clear vision of how I would bring them into the book. I spent many days at the convent, following the Sisters through their daily activities.”
Angelology is the story of Sister Evangeline. Brought to the convent at age 12, Sister Evangeline works in the research library. St. Rose Convent’s Sisters of Perpetual Adoration is known for celebrating the angelic texts in the bible. No outsider has been allowed to see their sacred texts. A letter arrives asking if Abigail Rockefeller has ever been linked to the convent. When Sister Evangeline tries to find out, her life changes forever.
Angelology is already being prepped to become a film. “Will Smith’s Overbrook production company and Sony Pictures bought the film rights,” says Trussoni. “Marc Forester is set to direct and Michael Goldenberg, who adapted Harry Potter for the screen, is currently writing the screenplay.”
“The idea for Angelology evolved over the course of a few years,” says Trussoni. “I knew that I wanted to write a historical novel that had religious elements at its center.
“As I mentioned, I went to a convent to interview nuns,” says Trussoni. “There was a beautiful chapel in the convent where the nuns went to pray. One night, when I was walking back from the chapel, I found myself in the convent reading room, a small space filled with religious books. One shelf of the library was filled with books about angels. I took a stack of books down, sat in a comfortable chair and began reading. Within hours I was aware that angels would be at the very center of my book and that I would use the convent I had visited as one of my primary settings.”
For further research, Trussoni did a lot of reading, mostly secondary sources about The Book of Enoch and about the theological views on angels.
Angelology is the first book in a series about the battle between a hybrid race of angel-humans and humanity. The time periods in the book shift, as does the locale. It moves from New York, to Paris in the 1940s, to the mountains of Bulgaria, It’s a classic tale of good versus evil. At times the plot is implausible. You ask yourself, why? You’ll love the concept. However, the characters don’t grow as much as they should in a novel of this scope. The story is dark and at times, disturbing.
Danielle Trussoni was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She’s moved to the south of France, near Montpellier, where the sequel to Angelology is set. She’s currently working on that book, called Angelopolis.
Rating: 3 Stars
Angelology: A Novel by Danielle Trussoni. Hardcover, 464 pages, Publisher: Viking Adult; FIRST EDITION (March 9, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780670021475 $27.95.
