Archangel

A beautiful, moving novel, set in a future world on a distant planet.

The angel Gabriel is chosen Archangel, leader of humans and angels alike; one of his duties is to marry the woman the god Jovah has chosen for him, and sing with her at the Gloria, a yearly festival that appeases the god with the solidarity of all the races of Samaria, their world.

But Gabriel has no idea how to find his appointed bride, for the god provides him with only her name and those of her parents. The town where she is supposed to have grown up has been all but destroyed.

It turns out that his bride, Rachel, was barely saved from a massacre in which her parents and all of her townspeople were killed. She was raised with the Edori, a race of wanderers, and a group that thinks there is no need for the angels at all, let alone the Archangel – they can talk to Yovah, as they call him, without the angels transferring their prayers. Rachel does not feel kindly toward Gabriel, who disrupted her world, and though she consents to marry him and sing beside him in the Gloria, she does it only out of a feeling of obligation.

Fighting schemers who have no concerns but for their own wealth, and against a background of mythical creatures, ordinary humans, powerful music, and grave sacrifices, Gabriel and Rachel must learn to trust each other, for they have few others to depend on.