Until Next Time
How does a girl choose between the one who steals her heart and the one who owns her soul?
Matt and Emily were created for a specific job. Raised and trained as the ultimate angel/warrior team, they are sent down to save, defend, judge and forgive, depending on the ‘life’ they’ve been assigned. What they don’t realize is that the power of human emotions, such as love, anger, passion and fear can take over even the best of souls, causing them to make mistakes and follow paths that lead to confusion and heartache.
When the reason for their training is finally revealed, the angel/warrior team find themselves thrust into a world they know nothing about. Matt takes over the life of Daniel, a young man with a great deal of baggage. Emily becomes Liz, a girl living in a remote village who relies on nothing more than her own strength to survive. A violent storm erupts one night, and framed in the window of Liz’s establishment is a frightening face. Let in by the soul of a Good Samaritan, the two visitors bring with them a past full of secrets that could literally change an angel’s path and a warrior’s plans.
From murder to redemption, this angel/warrior team must find a way to keep the faith they have in each other in a world that’s ripping them apart.
I am grateful to be a part of the Until Next Time Blog Tour hosted by Tribute Books but I’m afraid I don’t have many good things to say about this book. The beginning starts off interesting and remains that way for the first few chapters. But as you venture further into the book, the plot becomes thin and nearly unrecognizable. Overall I never could quite get into this story or even the rally behind the characters.
The main characters are angels sent to Earth to carry out a mission for Heaven. As with most angel books there are some religious/christian undertones and after awhile many angel stories start to sound the same. However, Until Next Time does have a unique take on the Angels. The Angels reside in heaven (no big surprise there) and are trained for missions by Saints. When the angels are sent to Earth, they have no knowledge of their life in Heaven of any previous lives they’ve had on Earth. I thought this was an original take on Angels.
I felt the training and the relationship with the Saints needed more explanation. It’s pretty ‘surfacy’ and because of it you don’t feel the connections that the main characters have with their mentors/trainers. There are references to the roles each Saint plays but not a lot of explanations as to who they are. Growing up in a faith that did not study the Saints, I didn’t understand the references but I could tell the author was trying to be clever. Perhaps a description of who the Saints were might have helped me understand why animals tended to surround one saints and a few other references here and there. In addition to the Saints, the author added in a few religious messages into the story that I ended up skimming over due to personal reasons and I could see people not of the Catholic faith skimming as well.
While on their mission the main characters find love interests. For Emily/Elizabeth, the love connection happens right away and grows into full fledged love without much development. There is a similar situation for her friend Faith. She meets a boy and what feels like two chapters later, they get married. As I mentioned in many of my other reviews, I am not a fan of insta-love. It puts an instant bad taste in my mouth and sours the rest of the book for me. I just can’t buy into a story when the characters fall in love at first sight.
On top of the religious undertones and the insta-love, there wasn’t much to the plot. I didn’t follow the reasoning behind many of the characters decisions. To avoid totally ripping the book apart, I’m not going to say to much more on this subject and summarize my thoughts with this book it just didn’t make sense to me.
Other reviewers have generously complimented the author’s writing but I would say Lignor had moments where she demonstrated clear skill and moments where her words fell flat. I thought the tone she used was strange for a book mostly set in Ireland in the early 1800′s. The characters spoke like they were teenagers from the present and never seemed to speak with Irish accents or mannerisms. I was surprised the author didn’t try to highlight the time and place her book was set in in her writing.
I really dislike giving books bad reviews and never write a review of a book I disliked without careful thought behind it. I wanted to like this book more than I did and had expected to like based on other reviews. I unfortunately didn’t see what other positive reviews have stated. However, since there is such a contrast in my opinion from other reviewers, I encourage followers to give Until Next Time a shot.
Thank you to Tribute Books and Amy Lignor for providing a copy of Until Next Time in exchange for an honest review.