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    Dark Angels: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Dark Angels: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Dark Angels: A Novel
    Audiobook18 hours

    Dark Angels: A Novel

    Written by Karleen Koen

    Narrated by Donada Peters

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The long-awaited prequel to Koen's beloved Through a Glass Darkly, Dark Angels is a feast of a novel that sparkles with all the passion, extravagance, danger, and scandal of seventeenth-century England.

    Alice Verney is a young woman intent on achieving her dreams. Returning to England after a messy scandal forced her to flee to Louis XIV's France, Alice is anxious to re-establish herself by regaining her former position as a maid of honor to Charles II's queen and marrying the most celebrated duke of the Restoration.

    But all is not as it seems in the rowdy, merry court of Charles II. Since the Restoration, old political alliances have frayed, and there are whispers that the king is moving to divorce his barren queen, who some wouldn't mind seeing dead. Alice, loyal only to a select few, is devoted to the queen, and so sets out to discover who might be making sinister plans-and if her own father is one of them.

    When a member of the royal family dies unexpectedly, the stakes are raised. As Alice steps up her efforts to find out who is-and isn't-true to the queen, she learns of shocking betrayals throughout court, and meets a man who she may fall in love with-and who could spoil all of her plans. With the suspected arrival of a known poison-maker, the atmosphere in the court electrifies, and suddenly the safety of the king himself seems uncertain. Secret plots are at play, and war is on the horizon-but will it be with the Dutch or the French? And has King Charles himself betrayed his country for greed?

    Unforgettable in its dramatic force, here is a novel of love and politics, of romance and betrayal, of power and succession-and of a resourceful young woman who risks everything for pride and status in an era in which women were afforded little of either.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 5, 2006
    ISBN9781415933619
    Unavailable
    Dark Angels: A Novel
    Author

    Karleen Koen

    Karleen Koen is interested in history, particularly women's place in it. Love and hate, gender issues, and spiritual quests are themes she explores in her fiction. She lives in Houston and is also the author of Dark Angels and Now Face to Face. Her blog, called Writing Life, is at www.wordpress.karleenkoen.com.

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    Reviews for Dark Angels

    3.5/5

    172 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was a really good book. I had trouble putting it down. Read it in appx 3 days. I had never really read anything about Louis XIV's Court and this gave a good overview. Good characterization and good descriptions. I would recommend this to anyone. I have not read either of her other books but his has inspired me to do so. I'm not big on giving the story line in reviews. That can so easily spoil the book for someone else. It's a "Court life" book.
    • 3/5
      I picked this book up in a thrift shop unaware that it was the third book in a series. I recommend reading the books in order. I couldn't keep up with the numerous characters and didn't have a 'feel' for who they were until I was at least halfway through the story. The remaining half of the story felt rushed. I was disappointed and let down in the end with the relationship between two main characters. Overall it was an okay read, but if I had the chance to do it over I'd read the first two books before this one.
    • 3/5
      Set in the Restoration court of Charles II, Dark Angels tells the tale of young Alice Verney, a headstrong woman determined to be a duchess. Already betrayed by her first fiance, Alice plots her revenge in a court teaming with poison, passion, and politics. She encounters the handsome young Richard Saylor, a soldier with promise, and while a mutual attraction slowly forms between the two, Alice remains dedicated to becoming a duchess. While I always enjoy historical fiction set during the Restoration period, I did not find the characters of Dark Angels very engaging or well-developed. Alice is nearly unlikable at times, especially in how she treats her friend Barbara and her refusal to mend bridges with Caro. Despite this, Dark Angels remains an interesting look at Restoration England and the fascinating cast of characters found during this period.
    • 5/5
      Karleen Koen never disappoints with her vivid depictions of history from a courtier's perspective!
    • 3/5
      I was disappointed in this book. I had high expectations for it because I loved Through a Glass Darkly. I didn’t like Now Face to Face Quite as much, but I had high homes for Dark Angels nonetheless.Dark Angels is the prequel to both those books. It's the story of Barbara's grandmother, Alice, as a young girl in the court of Charles II, "the Merry Monarch." The novel opens upon the day Charles's sister Minette arrives home from the French court for a visit after ten years away. Afterwards, Alice secures for herself a position in the court of Queen Catherine and is a first-hand witness to the events that take place therein. While the author does a remarkable job describing the events of the time, she captures none of the debauchery and licentiousness that characterized the court of Charles II; all of the characters seem lifeless and flat. There's a mystery included, I guess to add some excitement, but it was anticlimactic. It’s almost as though the author started out with one idea and quickly moved on to another.Alice in the 1670s is 16 and mature beyond her years. The problem I had with Alice's character is that she appears to be a completely different person from the woman she becomes in Through a Glass Darkly and Now Face to Face. I found myself completely disliking the Alice who appears here. Another thing I disliked was the relationship between Alice and her future husband, Richard. There was none of the "spark" that I expected. It left me thinking, "now what?" Let's hope there's a sequel planned. As a novel about the Restoration period, I recommend Kathleen Windsor's Forever Amber over this book.
    • 4/5
      I like Koen's writing. I am anticipating another book by her.
    • 5/5
      I thought this was a fine piece of historical fiction. It is full of triumph, tragedy, romance, and intrigue. It did take me some time to get comfortable with it. You're almost immediately introduced to this large cast of characters, and it takes a while to remember who is who and how they relate to the story. Alice is quite the complex character. You want to like her, because it's through her eyes that you see most things, but Koen makes her hard to like. Alice is intelligent, devious, and incredibly selfish, and pulls the strings of most that she meets. It is nice to see her grow towards the end of the story, but unfortunate that it takes tragedy for it to happen. There's a lot of loose ends when the book finishes, I'm curious to see they are ever resolved. I've already ordered Through a Glass Darkly, the sequel (though it was written first).
    • 4/5
      Having already read Through a Glass Darkly and Now Face to Face, I had high expectations for this novel about Grandmama (Alice) of the previous two books. I enjoyed the novel, I like the spirit and independence of Alice, which I expected. Knowing who she would ultimately wind up with, interfered slightly with my enjoyment. I'm still not sure if I would have preferred to read this book before reading the other two. This book paints what I suppose is a fairly reliable picture of the English court of Charles II and I was glad to learn a bit about that period of English history. It seems to me there is room for Karleen Koen to write some more novels involving Alice, and/or Barbara of TAGD and NFTF. I hope she does.
    • 3/5
      Perfectly average court intrigue novel.