Very good, but not as amazing as the first.Soren is receiving some unwelcome attention so he sends Nora and Michael, the young troubled hottie she deflowered in book one, upstate to get away from prying eyes. (Guildford... Guilderland and Waterford, maybe? My upstate brain says it must be so.) They stay with Griffin, a hunky trust fund baby, and sparks fly, etc.Suzanne is an investigative reporter who hones in on Soren in more ways than one. While I dug her plotline at first it soon became a vehicle for backstory and little more.While the The Siren was driven by Nora's struggle figuring out whose love she wanted The Angel is on more solid ground. Reisz uses the opportunity to indulge in flashback after flashback.I'm not sure what I think about them. I'm glad Reisz went the 'show, don't tell' route, and extra thankful she didn't set off the flashbacks with italics or some other annoying typography. Bonus points for letting a character drift into memory and come back without someone saying, "Hello, are you listening?!" But there were a lot of them, enough that I groaned when I saw another coming.As in Reisz's previous work she brings up a lot of questions to mull over. Is a numerical age of consent really the best way to go, or should the person's psychological state and well being also be taken into account? When a priest as confessor knows of a crime committed should he report it? How about when the confessee isn't Catholic? How can broken families, namely those with a crazy father figure, be saved? We see two possibilities and neither is warm and fuzzy.The thing that struck me most upon finishing is that we have a happy ending here. Not a happy ending tinged with heartache, but an honest to goodness guy gets girl (or guy) and life trajectories move towards the good. It left me disappointed. Happiness is good, of course, but I enjoy a good heart wrenching and Reisz knows how to deliver in that department. I was hoping for a little more bittersweet.Solid character development will keep me coming back every time, so on to book three it is.
