Jennifer Murgia

Lemniscate picks up months after Angel Star’s dramatic ending. Teagan is thrilled to have her guardian earth bound and with her. When guardian, Garreth, starts to make some very human mistakes and in turn pulls away from Teagan, she isn’t sure what to do. She is also struggling with her mom’s new relationship. Pulled between the desire to be happy for her, and the fears of what changes this will cause to her life especially the fact that this means spending more time with one of her show more worst enemies. Nothing is simple for Teagan in this book. While dealing with normal issues faced by teens she also must fight forces of evil.

I could not wait to read Lemniscate after falling in love with the world and characters in Angel Star. Jennifer Murgia has a knack for creating characters with so much depth and heart. Her take on heaven and hell is absolutely fascinating and not to be missed. Teagan is such a selfless character, and she proves this again and again over the course of Lemniscate. I adore her!

I found the plot to be a little more angsty than book one, but it worked. Teagan acted like you’d expect any teen girl who is balancing boy and family woes to behave. I love that she had all of this happening, but still managed to maintain a respectful attitude when it came to her mother. The few times Teagan let her emotions get the best of her she felt awful after for not being nicer to her mom. I truly love the normalcy this mother and daughter relationship exudes.

Lemniscate also seemed to be heavier on the action. Bad guys are after Teagan once again and she’ll have to figure out how her new mark factors into the danger she seems to attract. This worked well for the pacing, and I found I’d flown through this story in the matter of hours. It grabbed my attention on page one and never let go. The ending left me with several questions including one BIG question. I won’t divulge what that question is, but I can say I’m fiending for the next book in this series like you wouldn’t believe.

If you haven’t tried this series you really must. It is truly a breath of fresh air. I can’t wait to see where Teagan takes us next! show less

Lemniscate is the sequel to Angel Star (review here) which I loved, so I was very excited to dive back into this world again. We pick up pretty much right where Angel Star left off with Teagan and Garreth trying to adjust to everyday life together. Now that Garreth is on Earth full time Teagan is soaking up every moment with him. That time does get interrupted quite frequently with her mom’s new love interest and his step daughter, Brynn, who’s goal in life seems to be ruining show more Teagan’s. Teagan is trying to make the best of the situation but Brynn is not making it easy on her.

As Teagan’s life begins to unravel we do get to delve into the lore behind angels and what role Teagan plays in their world. She is still not quite convinced of her power and this book puts her strength to the test and then some. With the loss of Claire still haunting her Teagan is determined to keep everyone in her life safe and often puts their needs before her own. While an admirable quality to posses, it does put her happiness on the back burner and my heart went out to her numerous times when her life seemed to be crumbling around her.

I will admit that in the middle of the book Garreth was getting some evil glares from me. I think he let his new found humanity seep in a little too much and a moody teanage boy took over the body of the angel for awhile. Needless to say, I was not a fan. The reason for his mood swings is explained to you in the book and it makes sense, I just wanted to smack some sense into him at some points. But sometimes certain events are necessary and people need to struggle through life before they truly know who they are.

The surprising part to this little plot twist was how Hadrian really started to worm his way into my heart. I did not see that coming at all. I thought my name was permanently under the Team Garreth banner, but what is that expression about actions speaking louder than words? I think Hadrian’s actions spoke a little louder than Garreth in this novel, which was an interesting suprise.

Boys aside, I was really happy with the flow of this book. It kept the same exciting, no fluff, full of suspense feel that I came to love in Angel Star. I think this might be it for the series right now *sadly sniffs* but I will hold out hope that Jennifer will revisit this world again someday and bring us more in the life of Teagan. show less

This book was recommended to me by my awesome blog buddy Kate (who also happens to have a quote on the back cover of this book, how cool is that?) Anyway, my “to be read” pile has been mixed up in my move and I finally got all the boxes unpacked last week. So now I am on vacation (and brought a suitcase with just books, no really I did) and this book was on the top of the pile so I picked it up last night. I started reading it around 9:00 pm last night and stayed up until 1:00am to show more finish, I was addicted!! I seriously could not put it down, I may have closed it temporarily to get a drink or something but it was always in my hand.

I am a paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy kinda girl so I love the part of stories where the action picks up and your are left in suspense. Don’t get me wrong, still love the romance elements in there, what girl doesn’t? But the suspense side to this genre is what pulls me in completely and that is why I think I love this book so much. You hit the ground running with Angel Star and I loved every fast paced minute of it.

Since I have been reading for a while now I have also noticed that in many books there is the “fluff” factor. You know what I am talking about, all that fluffy stuff that is in books that really doesn’t add to the story. For example when you read about the characters going through all the boring everyday things in their life; eating breakfast for four pages, walking down the hall for three pages, or being in a bad mood for half the book (you know what book I mean…hehe) Okay sorry, you get the point right? Well, while all that stuff is going on you know you are secretly skipping ahead to try and get to the meat of the story, I know I do it. This book though, has no fluff, it was incredibly! I even found myself reading too fast at points and I had to go back and re-read because I had missed an important line two paragraphs before. It was crazy, I know I read fast sometimes, but I guess I am always ready for the “fluff factor” but in Angel Star that never came.

As far as characters in the story, Teagan is a great one. One of the things that I love about her is that she is open to a world outside her own. She believes that anything is possible and with the nightmares that haunt her, she is constantly searching through paranormal books for more theories and answers. Which as a fellow lover of this genre made me like her even more. And then there’s Garreth…I am at a loss for words on how to describe him, but he is definitely worth reading about. And we don’t even have to wait long to learn more about him, because he finds Teagan in chapter 1 and he is already leaving her breathless. He is a wonderful character that I don’t want to say too much about because I don’t want to spoil anything, but he is one of my new favorite leading men.

I usually try to write my reviews right after I read because it is the freshest in my mind and I want those initial thoughts. But I went to sleep last night to chew over everything I just experienced and woke up this morning and had to re-read some of my favorite passages before I could write up the review. You see when I really like a book I engulf myself in it and this is one of those books for me. I have spent the day looking up the author (she has a signing near me that I am going to try and go too…so excited) and some of the lore mentioned in the book and then realized it was 6:00pm and I had spent the day on the computer! So my point to all this excited rambling? You should go pick up this book, duh!?! You will be swept you off your feet with this novel and you will not touch ground again until the last page. I think it might take you by surprise, I know it snuck up on me and I am glad it did.

Language Love:

“When the veil of the forest began to smother us, I looked up through the open roof of the Jeep in time to see the flanking limbs choke out the rest of the sun”

It was really hard for me to only pick one line from this book because Jennifer is a master at description. I was immersed in this world and the descriptions in it were memorizing. This one is my favorite though, there is just no way you cannot have a picture in your head after this line. show less

Since reading Fallen and Hush, Hush, I having been itching to get my hands on more books about angels. So when I read the premise for Angel Star, I was in. Angel Star did not disappoint! In fact, Angel Star reminded me of how much I love paranormal romance.

Teagan was a great main character that was easy to like. She won me over right away with the fact that she was a reader. Murgia even mentions Teagan reading A Great and Terrible Beauty in the beginning of the story. What I loved about show more Teagan is she had her own "destiny" so to speak. It wasn't just her finding the supernatural world and wanting to be part of it. Her character was woven into the story plot, and I really enjoyed that.

Now can I just go on and on about Garreth? Because I seriously want to! I loved Garreth. He was sexy, strong, sweet, caring, loving, sexy, sexy, . . . did I mention sexy? Yea, it's safe to say I have a character crush on Garreth. Hadrian's character surprised me. I don't want to say too much on him because I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say he kept me guessing.

One of the best parts of this story for me was the writing style. The author didn't trying too hard to be anything. No matter if the writing was funny, thrilling, beautiful . . . it all felt very real and honest to me.

There is something so fascinating and alluring about angels. Murgia has painted a beautiful world of guardian angels. The pace of this story was fantastic. I loved all the elements, and how guardian angels work in this world. I also loved the idea of heaven starting in your mind. That makes sense to me. Never once was I not enthralled while reading this. I couldn't believe how often Angel Star surprised me. I thought the plot would be easily predictable. That was not the case. The ending was the best part for me, because it just never ended. Every time I thought, "Okay, exciting part over", something else would happen that shocked me.

I want to keep gushing about this one, but I don't want to risk giving anything away. Angel Star was a phenomenal debut. I CANNOT wait for the sequel. Yes, there will be a sequel! Thank God, because I am not ready to give up these beautiful and surprising characters, and vividly painted world Murgia has created. show less