I’ve been a fan of Anne Rice’s since that fateful day in the library when I picked a copy of The Vampire Lestat of the shelf, read the summary, decided it wasn’t for me and put it back again. I couldn’t find anything else interesting to read, so went back and decided to give it a go. I literally could not put the book down and it was the start of a love affair for me. No other character in a book has intrigued me more to this day than Lestat de Lioncourt.

Unfortunately, after the first four books were released, Rice went back and wrote more vampire tales but they could not live up to her earlier books and it was very frustrating as a reader. Lestat’s last appearance was lukewarm to say the least and even I was thinking it was time to move on.

Rice has always maintained the inspiration for Lestat came from her husband Stan and when he sadly died, it seemed like Rice’s love for the supernatural realm went with him. She rediscovered her faith and began writing about Christ. I can’t comment on whether these books were any good though since I haven’t read them as the subject doesn’t really appeal to me.

So, when I realised Rice had returned somewhat to the supernatural world for her latest book, Angel Time, which is part of a series entitled Songs of the Seraphim, curiosity got the better of me and I just had to read it. The book centres around the character of Toby O’Dare aka Lucky the Fox, an assassin who takes his orders from The Right Man, a shadowy character of unknown allegiance who assures Toby he is working for the good side.

During one of these missions, Toby is visited by a seraph who offers him the chance to save lives instead of destroying them. Toby is torn between continuing to work for The Right Man, who is at least familiar, and the seraph who claims to be from God. Toby finally accepts the seraph’s deal and is transported back to 13thC England where he becomes a friar and has to save the lives of innocent Jews. Along the way, Toby has to find his own redemption for his past actions.

While I didn’t hate the book, I didn’t exactly fall in love either. Most of the first half of the novel is taken up by how Toby’s unhappy childhood contributed to his becoming an assassin and it is a long time before the seraph even makes an appearance. Toby takes a while to make his decision and there is a real sense his soul is being fought over by forces of good and evil but it all takes too long. When Toby finally decides to go with the seraph, he is finally transplanted in 13C England where he must save the lives of a Jewish couple who have been accused of murdering their daughter after she participates in a Christian service.

As it turns out, the girl died of appendicitis but the death is covered by the family so it doesn’t look suspicious coming so soon after the girl’s apparent interest in Christianity. The whole thing backfires badly and when Toby learns the truth about her death, he devises a scheme to pass the girl’s identical twin of as the dead girl during a trial. The identical twin had already converted to Christianity some years before and had been sent away by the family before moving to their present location so very few knew of her existence. Toby manages to save their lives but the crowd turn its attention on him and it all ends in violence before the seraph can lift Toby away.

At the end of the book, Toby reflects on the lessons he has learned, discovers he is a father and is given another mission. The book seemed rather uneven to me, spending too much time on Toby’s motives and not enough time on his mission in the past, however I get the impression it was just setting up the premise for the series and hopefully the next book will correct that. Overall, the premise of the books intrigues me enough to make me want to read the next one but it remains to be seen whether Rice has another epic series on her hands.