Guardian Angels (Hardscrabble Books)

Rating:
Summary: guardian angels
Review: Great book by a really great author. I don not usually like sequels but this is the exception to the rule. The Gentrys are spooky and then you add a character like Joe Grant to the mix and it really makes it scary.

Rating:
Summary: Great book by a great writer
Review: Guardian Angels is one of those rare books that lives up to the cliche "page turner". I rarely read novels in a single day but this book was so engaging and entertaining I read it in a single sitting. It has everything a good horror novel should have. Chills, thrills, a neat plot, and likeable, smart characters. Highly recommended. When are you going to write a new book, Mr. Citro? Don't leave us hanging any longer!

Rating:
Summary: Great book by a great writer
Review: Guardian Angels is one of those rare books that lives up to the cliche "page turner". I rarely read novels in a single day but this book was so engaging and entertaining I read it in a single sitting. It has everything a good horror novel should have. Chills, thrills, a neat plot, and likeable, smart characters. Highly recommended. When are you going to write a new book, Mr. Citro? Don't leave us hanging any longer!

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Summary: Comments about GUARDIAN ANGELS
Review: GUARDIAN ANGELS was a bit of a departure from the three-book odyssey I had originally planned. In my prior novel, SHADOW CHILD (1986), I had already created the town of Antrim, Vermont and the mysterious Gentry who live on its periphery. I was ready to move on to a totally new novel and locale. But I hesitated. Somehow I sensed the story of Antrim's weird goings-on still hadn't been completely told. If its citizens really had unseen neighbors living in the surrounding wilderness, what were they like? What motivated their actions? And how did their presence affect the taxpaying townsfolk? So I decided to revisit Antrim. Framed as a mystery, and using a narrative device I had already established - the "fairy tale for adults" - I ventured even farther into fantasy as I tried to imagine the aftermath of the horrific events detailed in SHADOW CHILD. As in the previous book, the menace in GUARDIAN ANGELS is borrowed from legitimate Vermont lore. This time, however, there is a more conspicuous human evil personified by the enigmatic Joe Grant. Joe's character is so foul that one reviewer denied in print that any such people live in Vermont. I'm not so sure about that, but I know Joe is the most despicable character I have ever created. That's why I named him after me. The Gentry, on the other hand, are entirely imaginary. I hope.

From Vermont Life Magazine: "Joseph Citro is, above all, a storyteller, and he drives the plot along from the very first pages. He is our pilot, pushing us back into our seats with the force of the acceleration, and rarely letting up on the throttle. "The prose is extremely cinematic. The reader is made to really see, to stare at, the terrifying images and scenes on the page. Some of these sights you'll probably carry with you for a long time."

From Vanguard Press: "Pairing the scent of a mysterious, primeval force with keen observations of human foibles, Citro brings vividness and insight to his macabre tale. Half his craft is the acute portrayal of his characters... The other half [is] maintaining a respectable pace of psychological terrorism. Indeed, one's skin begins to crawl right from the very first page."

From Jim DeFilippi, author of DUCK ALLEY and BLOOD SUGAR: "Guardian Angels is a scare-house ride of dark corners, jarring turns, and unexpected images popping out at us, giving us an adrenaline spritz of fear at every turn."

From Howard Frank Mosher author of A STRANGER IN THE KINGDOM and THE FALL OF THE YEAR: "Mr. Citro is blessed with a wonderfully distinctive storytelling voice - lucid, speculative, gently iconoclastic - just the sort of... voice you'd want to tell you a ghost story."

From Christopher A. Bohjalian, author of MIDWIVES and LAW OF SIMILARS: "One of the most creative gothic novelists currently at work is Vermont's Joseph A. Citro."

Rating:
Summary: long time Vermonter
Review: I had a hard time putting this book down because it was just so flat-out spooky. Granted, the premise is absurd, but if you want reality, watch the news. This is a great story that kept me up late into the night. While I'm not a big fan of teenagers as protagonists, this works fairly well b/c Citro treats him as a real person as opposed to a stereotype. If you like horror stories, you will love this.

Rating:
Summary: Spooky
Review: I had a hard time putting this book down because it was just so flat-out spooky. Granted, the premise is absurd, but if you want reality, watch the news. This is a great story that kept me up late into the night. While I'm not a big fan of teenagers as protagonists, this works fairly well b/c Citro treats him as a real person as opposed to a stereotype. If you like horror stories, you will love this.

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Summary: What Really Does go Bump in the Night?
Review: In Citro's second novel of the Gentry, he gets very much involved with the surroundings of the woods, that one is able to actually be horrified at being lost in the woods with the characters of this story. A fantastic story line that will keep anyone addicted to finding out if the Gentry will continue to terrify and ask one question: What is reality?

Rating:
Summary: long time Vermonter
Review: Living in Vermont, In the same enviornment as Citro's setting, it is difficult to look accross the field from my kitchen window and not think of the Gentry. Leads you to question the foundation of your own reality

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable but...
Review: Mr. Citro never fails to entertain but, this is a case of not quite meeting the high standards set by his other books.

The story is good and the re-appearance of Eric Nolan (central character in Citro's previous book set in Antrim, Vermont: Shadow Child) makes readers of his previous book feel "in-the-know" and part of the story even more.

This story also brings back Citro's most frightening and malevolent antagonists: the Gentry. These are his best invention as it is so easy to picture their child-like laughter in the reader's head and it is amazing how the warming sound of children's laughter becomes so forbodding in this context.

However, Mr. Citro seems to have found it necessary to bestow upon the Gentry new and more unbelievable powers. That is the problem, they do become unbelievable. We accepted their limited (but fearsome) powers in Shadow Child but, with their added powers, any victory by the untrained and average citizens seems so far-fetched that readers may find themselves wondering how the Gentry could have lasted centuries to fall to this group of people.

Finally, on a prudish note. Mr. Citro's repeated descriptions of the thirteen year-old girl's (Mona Grant) developing body (described clothed, partially clothed, and nude during sex) made even me uncomfortable. I caught myself forgetting that he was describing a girl barely in her teens and when I remembered, I felt a bit on the dirty side. I see the point of these references and I do understand that there is a "coming of age" aspect to the book (especially as regards Mona and Will) but, it was still a bit gratuitous for me.

On the positive-side (and please, don't let my tendancy to "criticize first, and praise second" dissaude you from the overall enjoyment that is this book) Mr. Citro gets you to accept his characters quickly (ecpecially the returning characters of the Police Chief and Eric Nolan). Also, he completely immerses you into Antrim, Vermont and give return readers a welcome impression of returning to a favorite spot (given what occurred when last we saw Antrim in Shadow Child, this is an accomplishment). He does his usually wonderful job of conveying locales and moods as well as rapidly lighting a hatred of the Gentry that makes the reader more apt to allow hatred of the Gentry to bond the reader to the protagonists, regardless of their skeletons in the closet or seeming lack of a chance.

Read this book on a summer night when the windows are open and you can allow yourself to wonder, just for a second, if such things really do happen. If you're lucky, you'll scare yourself just a bit, if you are really lucky maybe a child will laugh within ear shot at just the right/wrong moment in the story.

Enjoy this book but, to truly appreciate Mr. Citro and HIS Vermont, read some of his other fictional work (especially Shadow Child).