Review: Strange Angels- Lili St. Crow

Dad? Zombie.

Mom? Long gone.

Me? Well, that’s the scary part.

Dru Anderson has been ‘strange’ for as long as she can remember, travelling from town to town with her father to hunt things that go bump in the night. It’s a weird life, but a good one—until it all explodes in an icy, broken-down Dakota town, when a hungry zombie bursts through her kitchen door. Alone, terrified, and trapped, Dru’s going to need every inch of her wit and training to stay alive. The monsters have decided to hunt back—and this time, Dru’s on their menu. Chances of survival? Slim to none. If she can’t last until sunup, it’s game over…

Although I’ve been following the Deadline Dames (a blog that Lili St. Crow regularly posts on) for a while now, I never actually knew what she’d written until the Strange Angels series came highly recommended from a friend. It’s now one of my favorites, and I’m insanely annoyed that I’ll be in Mongolia when book 3 comes out.

‘Strange Angels’ isn’t exactly a long book—only 293 pages—and not a huge amount actually goes on. That doesn’t mean it’s any less action packed or fast-paced; it’s a voyage of discovery and world building, and Lili St. Crow’s suspenseful writing keeps you hooked. Forget the usual idea of having either one or two supernatural creatures hanging around: in 'Strange Angels', anything goes-- vampires, werewulfen, zombies, chupacabras, even roach spirits!

My absolute favorite thing about this series is the characterization-St. Crow really knows how to create realistic characters, complete with flaws, who behave much more realistically than a lot of YA characters. Dru is actually a tough heroine, not the wannabe butt-kicking girls we see all too often. She does what she has to do, solves her own problems and doesn’t tolerate whining. That said, she knows her limitations and definitely has a human side—she’s not going to be tackling an army of zombies one handed or creeping up on a bloodsucker without a racing pulse anytime soon.

Although he has a huge army of fan girls, I’m not a fan of Christophe, our half human vampire hunter—he’s just not interesting enough, in my opinion, and any guy who freaks you out so thoroughly shouldn’t turn into a love interest. Newly bitten werewulf Graves, on the other hand, has a place very close to my heart because he’s fun, nice, and imperfect. In fact, sometimes it feels like the author deliberately reminds us that he’s no Adonis, frequently with funny thoughts from Dru. It makes him all the more awesome!

Without further ado, here's the book trailer. I'm not 100% sure it's really representative- the voice sounds too whiny and girly to be Dru, but hey, it'll give you guys more of an idea of what the book's about!

*sigh* It's not too long until July, which is a relief. I don't think I could last that long without more Graves!

lale