Fresh New Voice of YA- Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton
"First there are nightmares.

Every night Ellie is haunted by terrifying dreams of monstrous creatures that are hunting her, killing her.

Then come the memories.

When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. His attention is intense and romantic, and Ellie feels like her soul has known him for centuries. On her seventeenth birthday, on a dark street at midnight, Will awakens Ellie's power, and she knows that she can fight the creatures that stalk her in the grim darkness. Only Will holds the key to Ellie's memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream.

Now she must hunt.

Ellie has power that no one can match, and her role is to hunt and kill the reapers that prey on human souls. But in order to survive the dangerous and ancient battle of the angels and the Fallen, she must also hunt for the secrets of her past lives and truths that may be too frightening to remember."-summary from Amazon

This is one hell of a debut. I was sucked in from the beginning and hated having to put the book down for anything. Moulton did a wonderful job with the world building here; it was pretty original and had some interesting twists along the way.

Ellie is a great heroine- strong, tough, fights hard for what she believes in as well as her loved ones (and y'know, the rest of humanity) but also has flaws like any regular teenager- insecurity (mainly stemming from her crazy father, who I feel like may have more going on there than what the surface is), lying quite a bit, and other stuff. I really wish I could get a good grasp on her flaws and could describe them, but it's hard. She isn't perfect though and when reading the book, she's a really well-written character.

The will-they-won't-they romance that's usually prevalent in paranormal books is here too, but I really like how Moulton sets it up. It's not love at first sight, though Ellie does find Will attractive. The romance grows as the novel goes on but for the most part, they're friends for a majority of the novel and I really liked that. The action scenes and flashbacks are written really well too. They're suspenseful and page-turning; Moulton has a real knack for writing great fight scenes.

Overall, a really great debut and wonderful way to start a trilogy. I eagerly anticipate the next novel!

FTC: Received ARC from publisher. Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.