"A Madness of Angels"

"A Madness of Angels" (Or, The Resurrection of Matthew Swift) is Kate Griffin's first novel for adults.  Griffin is the pseudonym for Catherine Webb who is a Carnegie Medal nominated Young Adult author based in London.  Go to www.kategriffin.net to learn more about this fantasy author who apparently also writes under another pseudonymn - Claire North!  Her first novel was published when she ws 14 years old under the name of Catherine Webb.

The "A Madness of Angels" version I read is a 458 page hardback book which I had to keep returning to the library and requesting again because the size of the book was daunting and I was never willing to put it ahead of the other books I had checked out from the library.  However, my spouse and I just went on a mini vacation to the Washington coast .  ( If you haven't discovered the cabins at Kalaloch Lodge, they are not to be missed.  Off-season pricing also helps.  We settled into Cabin 5 for 4 nights with our books plus DVD's to watch on our laptop because these rooms do not come with TV's or phones and the only cell phone coverage I had was texting and even that wasn't always reliable.  We had a free breakfast at the lodge every morning so we'd eat late then I'd cook a very simple meal for an early dinner and our final meal was nuts and chocolates while we were watching a DVD later in the evening.  That left me lots of time for reading and I was able to finish one book while I was there, make notes on a couple of cookbooks I had checked out from the library, and spend a day+ reading this complete novel.)

Two years after he dies Matthew Swift, the sorcerer, is alive again -- coming back to life on the floor in the master bedroom of his old residence but now someone else is living there.  He stumbles out of the house and immediately is in danger of being killed again.  As he tries to protect himself, he begins to search for his old friends and finds they were all killed after he was.  The world has changed a lot in the last two years but he is seeking vengeance and pulls together an unlikely assortment to help him find it.

This novel is set in London where my oldest daughter, who is married to a Brit, has lived for the past sixteen years -- making it a great vacation spot for me and my spouse.  I loved the references to spots in London that I've been to that are interwoven in this fantasy.

The author also has some great insights into homelessness as well as compassion for the homeless.  The first discourse is on page 157 of the hardback version and I particularly like the last paragraph;  "Thus, with a single swoop, the entire population of old, young, black, white, frightened, bold, subdued, cowering, cold, ill, hungry, thirsty, dirty or addicted are classified as self-destructive, and every ignored face, every shadow blotted out of the memory of the stranger on the street, can be classed by a single word - failed."

My church did a project earlier this year involving the homeless in our area and it has helped me look at those asking for money at street corners in a new light.  My goal is to help when I can and not judge nor make assumptions about how they might spend any money I give them.  I felt this same sense of non-condemnation throughout the book and it was a wonderful reminder for me because this way of thinking is new to me and needs reaffirming.

At the top of page 293 there is a section about giving money to charities and using that as a way of justifying not giving to someone on the street because you've allocated your resources elsewhere and can feel like you're doing your part that way.

Another section I really enjoyed was on page 363 (a section better left for you to read!) where Matthew is having a conversation with a nurse treating him and it's about the 3 things that make Britain great - the  first is their inability to play sports but their willingness to keep trying because this year it might be different.  The second thing is the BBC and the third is the NHS.

So, now that I've made it through "A Madness of Angels" and liked it what next?  There are three more books in the Matthew Swift series so it's time to move on to the next one.  When I finish this series, the author has another one plus the books she's written under 2 other names.  She's also young so I look forward to reading her for years to come!  pazt