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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Karleen Koen never disappoints with her vivid depictions of history from a courtier's perspective! (  ) goldnyght | Oct 10, 2009 |  I've read her other books, Through a Mirror Darkly and Now Face to Face, and they are much better developed than this book. It seems Koen had a plot bunny and needed to write it out quickly. It was okay. (  ) macart3 | Jun 27, 2009 | Well written, but overall disappointing sequel to Through A Glass Darkly. Just didn't have the oomph of the first book for me. http://ktleyed.blogspot.com/2009/06/d... (  ) ktleyed | Jun 10, 2009 | I read Through a Glass Darkly and Now Face to Face many years ago when they first came out. They were very good historical novels. When I got my ARC I was very excited and started reading it on the way home. Perhaps my expectations were too high. while I liked this book and could see how Alice developed into the strong character that she became in the sequels, this book fell a little flat. It clearly is setting the stage for another book, but that doesn't explain the flatness of this one. Alice and Richard are clearly stand ins for John and Sarah Chruchill and as such they should be simply fascinating. John and Sarah Churchill were one of the great couples of history. They were a love match and equally ambitious. They helped to make England the world power it became. The problem with this book is given such rich historical material on which to draw the book remains a little flat. I was left with the question what now? The biggest problem is that the motivations for Alice are not clearly explained and we never really get a sense of her ambition. Richard's motivations are equally obscure in this book. This is disappointing because the real historical characters were so fascinating and lived in such a fascinating time. This book does have its flaws but it is still a wonderful book. I finished reading it and since I know a little about this historical time period I can say that it had no major historical flaws. If you like historical novels or historical romance novels this is going to be a fine book for you to spend your time chewing through. It is filled with characters that you can come to love and care about set in a time and place that is full of intrigue, romance, and historical significance when England is on the cusp of becoming a great power. As a part of a sequence of books about the same family this is a good addition to the series. If you read and like books like the "Outlander" series by Gabeldon you will like this series of books as well. (  )1  benitastrnad | May 12, 2009 | I was disappointed in this book. I had high expectations for it because I loved Through a Glass Darkly. I didn’t like Now Face to Face Quite as much, but I had high homes for Dark Angels nonetheless. Dark Angels is the prequel to both those books. It's the story of Barbara's grandmother, Alice, as a young girl in the court of Charles II, "the Merry Monarch." The novel opens upon the day Charles's sister Minette arrives home from the French court for a visit after ten years away. Afterwards, Alice secures for herself a position in the court of Queen Catherine and is a first-hand witness to the events that take place therein. While the author does a remarkable job describing the events of the time, she captures none of the debauchery and licentiousness that characterized the court of Charles II; all of the characters seem lifeless and flat. There's a mystery included, I guess to add some excitement, but it was anticlimactic. It’s almost as though the author started out with one idea and quickly moved on to another. Alice in the 1670s is 16 and mature beyond her years. The problem I had with Alice's character is that she appears to be a completely different person from the woman she becomes in Through a Glass Darkly and Now Face to Face. I found myself completely disliking the Alice who appears here. Another thing I disliked was the relationship between Alice and her future husband, Richard. There was none of the "spark" that I expected. It left me thinking, "now what?" Let's hope there's a sequel planned. As a novel about the Restoration period, I recommend Kathleen Windsor's Forever Amber over this book. ( ) Kasthu | Jan 11, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:09 -0400)
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