This is THE book for your summer reading if you love stories that will have you on the edge of your seat. I would never have guessed that a novel about a young novitiate at an isolated convent on the Hudson River in upstate New York would turn out to be such a gripping read. However, this isn't just her story, for within these pages is a masterfully written exposé about a titanic struggle between good and evil in the form of a historical saga primarily concentrated during the years from just before World War II in Paris to the present day in New York City. This novel also contains excerpts extending back to the Tenth Century AD and beyond to the Book of Genesis to fill in the historical foundation for the plot.

There are many novels which are enjoyable to read, far fewer which have the added pleasure of being extraordinarily well written, and even fewer still which are so impressive in concept that they leave me almost breathless from their scope and ambition. This sprawling epic by Danielle Trussoni, a young woman still in her thirties, is just such a book. It is a stunning read, a sensational read, and words almost fail me in describing it, so you can understand my intense admiration for her for having found just the right words in writing this book. Great reading like this just doesn't come along every day.

Born in 1973, Danielle Anne Trussoni graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison summa cum laude with a BA in History and English (1996). Six years later at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she received an MFA in Fiction Writing. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and in many other publications. Ms. Trussoni currently lives with her husband in the south of France where she is working on the sequel to this novel.

Her first novel, "Falling Through the Earth," is a nonfiction description of her father's war time exploits as a tunnel rat in Viet Nam. That novel was extensively researched on site in Viet Nam, and Ms. Trussoni has applied the same kind of meticulous research and attention to detail in this novel, which she remarked was a lot more fun to write because it is a work of fiction. The author even adds numerous "footnotes" to the book to give added weight and verisimilitude to this work of fiction as appearing to be based on historical facts.

As is obvious from its title, this book is about angels. Angels. Their innate goodness. Terms like "guardian angel" and "an angel was watching over me" are common expressions in our every day speech. We have grown up hearing about them all of our lives if we have regularly gone to church or synagogue, and this would especially be the case if we had a Catholic upbringing and went to parochial school. We refer to children as being "little angels" if they are especially well behaved.

There are portraits of angels in the stained glass windows of our houses of worship and in many of the paintings by the Masters on down through the centuries. Cherubs and "putti" commonly adorn religious items and sculptures. If we paid attention in school we might even be able to rattle off some of the names of the different hierarchies of angels. Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominians, Archangels, Angels, and so on. A poll a few years back even surprised many by determining that the vast majority of Americans, almost four out of five, believe in angels.

Angels seem to be ubiquitous, but what do we know about them, really? Of the hundreds of mentions in the Bible, the first occurs in Genesis 6.1.: "When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, 2. the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. 3. Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.

4. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown."

What were these men of old, these mighty men of renown like? We assume that they were the fathers of Hebraic civilization, but what if they were something else entirely? Trussoni's concept is so brilliant, because she took our simple belief and our assumption about the goodness of the Nephilim, these children of the union between the angels and the earthly humans, and turned it completely on its head. 

What would happen if these unions were forbidden and the angels were punished by God by having their offspring, the Nephilim, turn out to be evil, cold, calculating, greedy, and selfish in their pursuit of worldly goods and pleasures? Furthermore, they would have extraordinary power because of their lineage, powers which would always place mere mortals at a severe disadvantage. They also have the added advantage of outlasting their mortal adversaries because they live for centuries. 

A small group of wise men and women known as Angelologists have soldiered on throughout the ages to defeat the Nephilim and reclaim human civilization from this ongoing cancer of evil in spite of the seeming impossibility of their mission. This novel is about them and their brave struggle. What a story! I can't wait for the sequel. 2010, Viking Press-Penguin Group, 464  pages.