Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Review - Angels Wings



Title: Angels Wings
Author: Anne Stuart
Publishing Date: 1990
Genre: Historical
Rating: B-
Sensuality: Warm

Angela Hogan's flight business isn't doing so well. Ever since her parents died in a fire she has been looking out for herself and her half-sister Constance. Angela has made a fairly decently life for herself through flying. She has a small shipping/flight school business. She has been having trouble recently with the local competition. Enter Jack Clancy, a loner and a drifter, but a damned fine pilot. Jack and Angela are like oil and water - they don't mix. If Angela wants her business to succeed she will need his help.

Angels Wings has a very unique setting. It takes place after the Great Depression in the 1930s. I liked how the slang of the the period came through in the writing. Also, historic events and songs and movies were referenced and that helped to set the background.

I liked Angela more than Jack. Jack was a definite jerk. He is basically a male chauvinist pig. They are both pilots, but Jack along with most of the other men in the book, think she should stay at home and just look pretty while the boys handle the business. Angela, of course is having none of it and does what ever she damn well pleases. She was an interesting heroine in that she is capable of handling a lot of responsibility running her flight school and business, but when it comes to men and her own sexuality she is completely clueless. Towards the end of the book Jack's character starts to come around but not enough to truly endear me to him, but enough that I found the ending satisfying.

One thing that bothered me with this story is the mysterious plot involving Angela's mechanic. He isn't who he says he is, but everyone but Angela figures out his real identity pretty quickly. It didn't make sense that Angela is the last one to figure it out, when logically she should have been the first person to do so. It just didn't fit with Angela's intelligence, or the reader's for that matter. It is just a little thing that irked me.


This review was part of Avid Book Reader's 2009 TBR Challenge. January's theme was category or series romance. You can view a list of other participants here.

4 comments:

Rowena said...

Oh gosh, he's one of those heroes? I can usually forgive a hero for anything but his attitude would seriously tempt me to smack him upside the head.

Good review though sweets.

nath said...

LOL, I wonder why all of her heroes are jerks. I mean, once in a while, okay... but all of them? (or almost all of them...)

Tracy said...

Jack sounds like a complete ass. Too bad her couldn't come around for you all the way. Some just don't.

Jill D. said...

Rowena, His bad attitude got on the heroine's nerves so much she did end up smacking him around. After she did it he told her if she ever did it again he would smack her back. Sure enough sometime later he said something else that pissed her off and she slapped him and he slapped her back. Can you believe that? I am sure that would hit a lot of readers' hot buttons.

Nath, See once upon a time I read the Anne Stuart book Nightfall. I loved it. The hero was the ultimate jerk hero, but there is this one scene where he was so tender. I then preceeded to gobble up all of Anne Stuart's backlist. Unfortunately, after a while the "jerk" hero took its toll and now several of her books have been sitting in my TBR pile for years.

Tracy, There are much better Anne Stuart books out there. Ones were the hero does come around.