Baby, I can feel your Halo

Halo, what can I say about Halo? There are plenty of cliches to be sure, something like, “You will be enveloped in the beautiful aura that surrounds this romantic love story,” is certainly warranted, and true. However, a book such as Halo really deserves something more. Let me tell you about it and then I will attempt to explain why you have to read it and, yes, bask in it’s glow.
Halo is a novel about three angels who descend from Heaven to Earth, in the hopes of improving the world’s moral, one Venus Cove at a time. Gabriel, is the warrior and handsome to boot, Ivy, is the healer, she is graceful, kind and driven, Bethany is the youngest, she has yet to discover her gift, but Our Father has sent her on the mission anyway.
Bethany meets a boy. No, not a boy, the boy, the boy she feels she was created for, a boy who is very much off-limits. The course of true love ne’er did run smooth. They fall in love and Bethany feels even more human with Xavier than she did in comparison to her brother and sister. She loves to love, she is happy to be romanced and her amazing new life is a gift in her eyes. Nothing could go wrong, until a mysterious new student arrives. Handsome and British Jake Thorn has something irresistible, and unsettling about his person at all times. Bethany can sense a feeling of dread and unease when she is with him, but is unwilling to completely disregard her new friendship with the interesting boy. What will be her undoing? Will she fall even further from Heaven? Will she fall from grace? How do you thwart the Dark Forces?
Okay, so let’s really talk here, no fluffy, melodramatic poetry, no over-dramatization. Straight-shooting, this is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It’s pure and unadulterated, no ‘marketability’ factor got in the author, Alexandra Adornetto’s, way. She had a story and an idea and she wrote it. And wrote it well.
First and foremost, this is a love story, a pure, pure love story. There are rumors of dark forces, there are shadows in the night, there are angels, demons and popular girls, but they don’t clutter the pages with unneeded angst, or repressed tension. Girl is an angel, girl meets boy and they are soul mates, without a ‘happily ever after, the end.’ Xavier and Bethany are perfect together. They are committed, trustworthy characters who you fall in love with yourself. I loved reading the book from Beth’s perspective, I loved her voice, her thoughts and her view on the world around her. She didn’t stumble around it, she embraced it, and that was a welcome surprise!
I usually gobble up a good read, you’ll know it’s awesome if I read it in a few hours time, however, you know that it’s special when I am still reading it days later. Halo was one of those elusive ‘others,’ the kind of book that fills your soul with something you didn’t know you were missing to begin with.
I really don’t want to say too much and give away the melodic beauty of experiencing the story first hand, but I do want to say read it and listen to it’s message, it’s beautiful.
Thoughts on the cover: This cover is what drew me in; my ARC looks a bit different than what will be on the stands this August 31, but both have that X-factor and I can’t wait to display both the ARC and hardback cover on my shelf!
Notable names: Well really you couldn’t go wrong here at all, all the names were flawless and set perfectly with the tone of the entire story. However, and Alexandra if you read this don’t beat yourself up, I am a name-nerd and I know that Xavier doesn’t mean light, it means ‘new house.’ Ah, don’t kill me! I still believe it was the perfect choice if only because Bethany found a new home with him on Earth, whew, crisis averted!
*Spoiler alert* I can’t wait for the sequel “Hades” which comes out the fall of 2011, Alexandra, if you are reading this I would be blessed if an angel dropped the ARC on my doorstep, if only to discover these two things- What is going on with Gabriel and Molly? There is something there, and I think Ivy telling Bethany about previous angel-human love may be closer to home than Beth would think. I also noticed that the final scroll of paper was not in Jake’s handwriting and have my opinions on who wrote it, but will wait patiently for the sequel to find out the truth.
Other thoughts: On the quotes page for Hades or Heaven I think the passage from 1 Corinthians would be fitting, “These three things remain, Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.”