Review – Broken Angel

When Jordan and his teenage daughter, Caitlyn, sank to the forest floor to rest, they didn’t know what waited around the bend in the trail. Weary from fear and the night-long chase, each knew they wouldn’t be safe from Bar Elohim until they reached the “Outside.” But the distant baying of the bounty hunter’s bloodhounds mixed with the Rottweiler’s shrill cries, urged them on. If they didn’t continue, they would be lucky to just die. In the Appalachian nation, Elders strictly enforced Bar Elohim’s rules with torture, or death by stoning, depending on the sin. Jordan had broken the rules and Caitlyn was guilty by association.

Bone-weary, they re-entered the Appalachian Trail but, before many steps, Jordan flung his arm in front of Caitlyn-and froze. Together, they stood scant feet from a sheer abyss. Hundreds of feet below, echoes from a mighty waterfall drifted up in the mountaintops chilly, misty air. Remorse, betrayal, long held family secrets, and shame over his daughter’s gross deformity, pierced his heart. Freedom had been so close-now there was no way out.

In this post-apocalyptic story, where science is no longer governed by morality, best-selling novelist, Sigmund Brouwer takes the reader into a futuristic world of religious fundamentalists. Their inhabitants governed by the strict interpretation of God’s Word. The Appalachian nation had broken away from the “Outside” after years of political and government infighting over a growing moral social decline. The new community’s rules were strict. Their small nation controlled by a group of Elders. Reading was a sin punishable by hard labor in the factories. Anyone caught teaching someone to read would be sentenced to death by stoning. Suspicion of hidden books meant capture and torture until the offender confessed.

Join Jordan and Caitlyn in their breathtaking escape from persecution before Caitlyn’s shocking metamorphous begins. They must reach the Underground Railroad and escape to the safety of “Outside” before Jordan’s daughter is caught and killed, or worse-held captive for experimentation as a freak specimen.

Don’t start this suspenseful, fast-paced book until you have time to finish it. Broken Angel’s cast of intriguing characters, combined with Brouwer’s excellent writing and complex plot, make for a suspenseful, page-turning read. If you aren’t already a fan of Sigmund Brouwer’s writing, you will be by the time it ends.