Melaia, a young priestess, discovers a stranger in the temple courtyard who upon her approach is attacked and killed by an abominably large black feathered bird. When she takes the body into the temple she finds that the stranger isn't human at all - he is an angel and his bloodied, but once white wings attest. This is when she recognizes that most of what she has been taught about the world wasn't half of the truth. Angels exist!
Breath of Angel
by Karyn Henley
Waterbrook
June 2011
Melaia is soon on a whirlwind adventure where she finds out the truth of her parents (she thought she was an orphan,) and the truth about angelic forces in the world - forces for good and forces for evil. And most importantly, she finds that she is a part of an ancient prophecy that will restore the stairway to Heaven that was destroyed by a now immortal human jealous of his younger brother. To restore this stairway and allow the angels to travel back to Heaven and to the worlds beyond, she must collect three magical harps within the next year and a half. Of course, this wouldn't be a Waterbrook title without romance and typically the romantic interest of our heroine is a roguish swordsman who Melaia never really knows if she can trust.
As far as a fantasy romance for young adults goes this books finds itself solidly in the camp of what passes now for popular fiction. In fact, it has so much in common with its secular siblings that one has to wonder - as I did - if the author was even writing to Christians as the imprint suggested. Heres why: this book is chaulk full of unorthodox and heretical ideas about angels.
Open the first page and you find a completely fictional hierarchy of angels, called the "Angelaeon," which sorts so-called types of angels into castes. Some of the names Christians will be familiar with through their reading of the Bible, like Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim, Archangels and of course Angels. Others are better known by their English translations, like Wheels (called Ophanim in this book) or are words taken from the New Testament and applied to angels, even when the New Testament may not actually do that, like Kuriotes (from the Greek "to have dominion" used four times in the New Testament, like in Colossians 1:16, but not as a proper name or actual title of an angelic being. For instance, consider Ephesians 2:1 2 Peter 2:10 and Jude 1:8 where the word means "authority" but not in reference to an angel.) All this to say that Henley is massively invested in - and the book's main focus in on - her version of angels.
Why is it a problem for a Christian book to have angels in it? Just because we take the name of someone from the Bible doesn't mean we are free - as Christians who believe that scripture is sacred - to change the character of the actual Biblical characters.
Consider this example: A man in a dusty fedora, with a brown leather jacket and a whip on his hip is searching for clues to find a long lost treasure. Along the way he fights Nazis and enemies on horseback trying to stop him. His name? John the Baptist.
That not only doesn't make any sense it is just plain isn't John the Baptist! Likelwise, the "angels" in Henley's book aren't the angels of the Bible either. They are - to use a fantasy term - better described as elves and magicians who have the names of angels.
Consider how Henley's angels differ from real angels: Henley's "angels" routinely have sex and children with humans (in fact several of the main characters are half human- half angels.) Angels in the Bible, for those who understand how to rightly interpret the Word instead of reading their biases into the text, do not have physical bodies, are not human, do not have sex or even have a sex (meaning there are no female or male angels), and certainly don't get married and live with their human spouses. Henley's angels also sleep around. One of the main "angels" in the story, Dreia, has children with two different humans and certainly wasn't married to the first one. Henley's "angels" can't travel to and from the presence of God without the use of a magical tree stairway. Furthermore, on several occasions the "angels" refer to this world as one of many worlds (which is much more akin to Mormonism than Christianity!) Henley's "angels" refer to the stars for information instead of communicating with God.
Bottom line, Henley's theology is a mess. And as a Christian author it is her responsibility to convey truth without stumbling readers. Consider that this problem of angel focus, called "angel worship" by Paul in Colossians, was a problem from the start of the church: "Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels [disqualify/cause you to turn away from God/lose your salvation] you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their [unspiritual/fleshly] mind." Readers of this review may be tempted to say that I cannot know Henley's heart - and they are right! But I can know by her fruit what kind of tree she is. And she is far too focused on angels, real and imagined.
Before writing this review I read her website and personal blog. What did I find but blog post after post about angels, fictional stories about angels, and so on. Where did she get her ideas on angels? Extra Biblical sources like 1 Enoch - a first century B.C. scroll rejected by all Christian orthodox faiths (except for Ethiopian Orthodox church,) that is purported to be from Enoch (great-grandfather of Noah) but was written thousands of years after Enoch "walked with God: and he was not; for God took him," (Genesis 5:22-29). A quick check of her
Angelology page references Zoroastrianism, Kabbalah, Gnosticism and more, which fits into a larger narrative that speaks to how Henley views angels. One that is certainly not orthodox, regardless of whether or not she is writing a Christian book.
This overemphasis on, and unorthodox definition of angels and the binding of Biblical statements about angels with mythology and fantasy is a mistake that Christians ought to know better than to make. I cannot in good faith recommend this book.
