12 new August science fiction and fantasy releases to help wind down summer
By Lacy Baugher
August 2021 release: A Terrible Fall of Angels – Laurell K. Hamilton
A Terrible Fall of Angles is the first installment in a brand new series from New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton, who wrote the wildly popular Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter books. But unlike her previous series, this one features a cast of characters who are of a decidedly more celestial bent.
Angels walk among us in this world, and Detective Zaniel Havelock is an angel speaker, one of the few humans who can communicate with them. An officer with the Metaphysical Coordination Unit, he investigates supernatural crimes and uses his direct connection to Heaven – and its secretive College of Angels – to help both angels and humans.
But when a college student is murdered, Havelock will have to confront his own personal demons to discover whether a very real demon is responsible.
The official synopsis describes the story as follows.
"Meet Detective Zaniel Havelock, a man with the special ability to communicate directly with angels. A former trained Angel speaker, he devoted his life to serving both the celestial beings and his fellow humans with his gift, but a terrible betrayal compelled him to leave that life behind. Now he’s a cop who is still working on the side of angels. But where there are angels, there are also demons. There’s no question that there’s evil at work when he’s called in to examine the murder scene of a college student—but is it just the evil that one human being can do to another, or is it something more? When demonic possession is a possibility, even angelic protection can only go so far. The race is on to stop a killer before he finds his next victim, as Zaniel is forced to confront his own very personal demons, and the past he never truly left behind."
A Terrible Fall of Angels is available on August 17.