A mixed but mostly positive review of Angel Falling Softly in the most recent Salt Lake Tribune entertainment supplement, In Utah This Week.

What is surprising is that Woodbury is also able to write convincingly from the point of view of a worldly vampire whose experiences are decidedly more carnal than that of any Latter-day Saint . . . . Woodbury did well to make [bishop's wife, Rachel] not too much of a stereotype . . . [and he] does a good job of letting us inside the minds of these two women.

The reviewer's main criticism is that the "novel comes off feeling more like a novella" that left her "longing for more complexity, more depth, and a fuller picture of the characters' lives."

Point taken, though I'm reminded of Michael Blowhard's arguments here and here that perhaps the novella format is what fiction needs to stay alive. "What an odd taste [novel reading] is," he observes, "staring at oceans of text, dutifully trudging from one page to the next."

He's describing what in Japan is called the "light novel," basically an illustrated novella. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books are being subdivided and published in Japan as light novels. (And for the record, I finished the first draft of Angel Falling Softly back in 2001.)

Labels: angel falling softly, angel reviews, light novel, publishing