The Crippled Angel (Crucible Series #3) » (Reprint)

Sara Douglass was born in Penola, a small farming settlement in the south of Australia. She has a Ph.D. in Early Modern English History. Since 1995 Sara has been Australia's leading author of fantasy and one of its top novelists. She lives in Tasmania.

The world that the former monk Thomas Neville knows is crumbling about him. The Holy Mother Church of Rome is losing its power over men and Thomas knows that this is not Man's doing but the work of the demons who have escaped their earthly prison and who are trying to breach the very gates of heaven.

The great archangel Michael has given Thomas the task to find the demons who now dwell in human form and expose their evil natures. To do this Thomas turns on one set of vows and return to his once lofty noble connections. He encounters old friends, a new love, and temptations that will try his conscience. And his very soul.

For Thomas is beginning to think that all that he knows may not be true. Faced with mortal love and friendships that he desperately wants and fears, he knows that time is growing short.

And the choice that he makes will reshape the world.

Publishers Weekly

In Australian author Douglass's stirring final book in her Crucible trilogy (after 2005's The Wounded Hawk), ex-priest Thomas Neville confronts such thorny issues as man's free will, the morality of angels and the natures of both God and Jesus. If Neville gives his soul to the angels, then mankind will be forever in their thrall. In order to save mankind and allow free will, Neville must find a whore to whom he can wholeheartedly deliver his soul. His anguished decision plays out against the backdrop of such tumultuous events as the reign of Hal "the Demon-King" Bolingbroke, the battle for the French throne at Agincourt and Joan of Arc's fiery martyrdom. This compressed alternate history offers such frightening treats as a view of the angelic heaven and a visit by "the black Dog of Pestilence" (which personally sprays the plague on London). Though the inevitability of Neville's choice is never in doubt, Douglass's excellent grasp of period detail and character is certain to delight fans of historical fantasy. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.