Book Review: A Madness of Angels: Or The Resurrection of Matthew Swift by Kate Griffin

As I read A Madness of Angels: Or The Resurrection of Matthew Swift I thought about what I would want to say about it. I kept a pad of paper and a pen handy, jotting down key words, page numbers, and phrases. But as I continued to read I forgot my pen and paper, forgot that I was going to have to sit down at a computer eventually and work up a review. Instead I got lost in a world so deftly created that I forgot about everything else.  I was completely taken in by the sorcerer Matthew Swift and his adventures.

We be light, we be life, we fire!
We sing electric flames, we rumble underground wind, we dance heaven!
Come be we and be free! We be blue electric angels.
--Anonymous spam mail, source unknown, from A Madness of Angels

Two years ago, on the bank of the river Thames, Matthew Swift died a very bloody death at the hands of a shadow.  But now he’s back, home to the London he loved, only to find that while some things remain the same others have changed. Almost everyone he thought he could count on for support is dead. His death, the death of a sorcerer of the city, was the first of many in the magical community of London. Lording its power of the weak and collecting magicians right and left is a mysterious organization called The Tower, headed up by one of the few people who have survived from Matthew’s past.   

Matthew Swift is less concerned with The Tower than he is with whoever first killed him and then brought him back.  The one problem, besides being killed in the first place, is that Matthew hasn’t come back alone. The Blue Electric Angels came with him. Now Matthew Swift is them and they are he, a strange mix of I’s and we’s. When he discovers that The Tower and the person that resurrected him are connected he begins to plot his revenge. 

Article Author: Katie Trattner

Ms. Trattner works for a non-profit agency where she is thankful for any internet time she can squeeze into her day. In her free time she reads one of the thousands of books stacked in her tiny apartment.

Visit Katie Trattner's author page — Katie Trattner's Blog