Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.25 AVERAGE
4.25 AVERAGE
It is rare to find a book where you are completely familiar with its settings and themes from the first page, where some of the character’s experiences mirror some of your own. I have a family connection to a similar church to the one at the heart of the story, the only difference being that ours was in North Liverpool and the one in The Angels of L19 is in the south of the city, in Garston.
As The Angels of L19 starts, Robert and Tracey are, like many 80s teens, obsessed by music. Tracey is teaching herself to play the drums, trying to match Stephen Morris’s computer-assisted rhythms via her Walkman and drum kit, while Robert looks for hidden religious meaning in U2 lyrics – as I once did and as every music-loving Church-going kid back then must have done! Robert is a ‘bit odd,’ perhaps, ‘going through a stage,’ as might be said of him. He counts things, walks into church with a paper bag over his head and performs Smiths-influenced skits at church and the summer Merseyside Christian Youth Camp. Some of this is based on the author’s own experiences, as he detailed in this essay ‘I Was a Teenage Christian.’ So some familiar situations, but since being baptised at camp, Robert has started seeing strange things, including what he calls a presence.
As Robert’s visions become more frequent, he tries to ask for help, telling Tracey and his other friend Jenny, a teacher and theology graduate, what is going on with him. Tracey warns Mark too, but what are seen as his eccentricities get in the way of making connections that could help him. While he is sure he is seeing angels, once the revelations come, there is a darker intent. The depictions of Robert’s increasingly disordered thoughts and dreams, and the gulf between what everyone else sees and what he experiences – how frightening and real and uncontrollable it seems to him – are vivid and powerful.
The Angels of L19 is a unique story, blending a coming-of-age tale with supernatural and even horror elements too. Horror isn’t a genre I read a lot of, being a bit of a scaredy-cat about things that might keep me awake at night, but even without knowing all of Jonathan Walker’s influences, I was swept away with the ambition of the novel, which deals with big questions of love, evil, faith and redemption, while creating compelling characters of the two leads and the cast around them.
Read my full review - and many more - at my website ten million hardbacks
As The Angels of L19 starts, Robert and Tracey are, like many 80s teens, obsessed by music. Tracey is teaching herself to play the drums, trying to match Stephen Morris’s computer-assisted rhythms via her Walkman and drum kit, while Robert looks for hidden religious meaning in U2 lyrics – as I once did and as every music-loving Church-going kid back then must have done! Robert is a ‘bit odd,’ perhaps, ‘going through a stage,’ as might be said of him. He counts things, walks into church with a paper bag over his head and performs Smiths-influenced skits at church and the summer Merseyside Christian Youth Camp. Some of this is based on the author’s own experiences, as he detailed in this essay ‘I Was a Teenage Christian.’ So some familiar situations, but since being baptised at camp, Robert has started seeing strange things, including what he calls a presence.
As Robert’s visions become more frequent, he tries to ask for help, telling Tracey and his other friend Jenny, a teacher and theology graduate, what is going on with him. Tracey warns Mark too, but what are seen as his eccentricities get in the way of making connections that could help him. While he is sure he is seeing angels, once the revelations come, there is a darker intent. The depictions of Robert’s increasingly disordered thoughts and dreams, and the gulf between what everyone else sees and what he experiences – how frightening and real and uncontrollable it seems to him – are vivid and powerful.
The Angels of L19 is a unique story, blending a coming-of-age tale with supernatural and even horror elements too. Horror isn’t a genre I read a lot of, being a bit of a scaredy-cat about things that might keep me awake at night, but even without knowing all of Jonathan Walker’s influences, I was swept away with the ambition of the novel, which deals with big questions of love, evil, faith and redemption, while creating compelling characters of the two leads and the cast around them.
Read my full review - and many more - at my website ten million hardbacks
Evangelical Exorcism à la 80's Liverpool
Review of the Weatherglass Books paperback edition (July 2021)
[A biased 5 rating from me, as I am a big fan of the CBS/Paramount+ series Evil (2020-) which features a charismatic trio of demonic possession assessors/investigators, and this book is right along those lines + it includes references to my fave 80s music of U2 and New Order]
The Angels of L19* is the second book from new UK independent publisher Weatherglass Books and follows its premiere release of [b:Cold New Climate|56248999|Cold New Climate|Isobel Wohl|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1607688680l/56248999._SY75_.jpg|87624007] (2021) with a unique coming of age story set in Liverpool, England in the 1980s.
The lead characters here are Robert and Tracey, teenagers still in school and also part of an evangelical Christian community along with their surviving parents, relatives and assorted friends. The chapter headings signify whose POV we will encounter, and they mostly alternate between the two. The main secondary character is Mark, who is a veteran of the Falklands War and is a youth counsellor for their religious community and who holds separate weekly Bible study classes at his flat.
The main story does involve Robert's perception that he is seeing a presence and a manifestation which he seeks to exorcize with the help of his friends. This is mostly handled from Robert's POV so you might believe that it is due to Robert's own mental health issue. Tracey interacts with it as well though, and it also appears to have knowledge that it shouldn't, so an actual demonic possession could be the case. Your own beliefs will likely influence your acceptance of one or other here. Saying much further would be a spoiler, but I'll just add that slightly similar to New Cold Climate, the end of the book makes a time jump to show the end results.
While this might all seem serious and supernatural, the main focus is on the community, the kids lives and their joy and love of music. A favourite section for me was Tracey (who is a drummer in their occasional pickup bands) trying to work out the drum patterns of New Order's Blue Monday (1983) which is, of course, played by a machine in the original. If you've ever loved that song or perhaps played in any band trying to work out how to copy a song, then perhaps you'll understand why this is obsessive fun stuff for me. Non-pop-music fans may not understand.
Also I simply liked that the Christian faith of the characters was not something to be mocked or sneered at. It was simply accepted, just as all faiths should be. I'm not particularly religious myself, and even lean a bit to my Estonian heritage animistic roots, so this bias isn't from any fanatical point of view from me.
Anyway, this is another winner from Weatherglass, and I've already subscribed to their 2nd year of releases. The current schedule lays out a plan of 3 releases per year, and the 3rd release of 2021 will be the non-fiction What They Heard, by [a:Luke Meddings|5582456|Luke Meddings|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], expected later in September 2021.
Other Reviews
The Angels of L19 by Ian Mond, Locus Magazine, September 3, 2021.
Book Review: The Angels of L19 by Jackie Law, Never Imitate, August 20, 2021.
An Ambitious Flawed Experiment by Nina Allen, The Guardian, August 12, 2021.
* Canadian nerd confession. The title code letter-number meant nothing to me. I waited throughout the entire book to learn its secret meaning. Various absurd theories went through my mind. Did the L mean 50 written in Roman numerals? Was there a Bible book with 50 Chapters with a significant 19th verse? Did Leviticus 19 have a special meaning? After finishing the book with no answer, I finally googled "What does L19 mean in Liverpool, England?" to get my answer. It turns out it is just a postal code for a part of Liverpool. Yes, OK, laugh if you want to.
Review of the Weatherglass Books paperback edition (July 2021)
[A biased 5 rating from me, as I am a big fan of the CBS/Paramount+ series Evil (2020-) which features a charismatic trio of demonic possession assessors/investigators, and this book is right along those lines + it includes references to my fave 80s music of U2 and New Order]
The Angels of L19* is the second book from new UK independent publisher Weatherglass Books and follows its premiere release of [b:Cold New Climate|56248999|Cold New Climate|Isobel Wohl|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1607688680l/56248999._SY75_.jpg|87624007] (2021) with a unique coming of age story set in Liverpool, England in the 1980s.
The lead characters here are Robert and Tracey, teenagers still in school and also part of an evangelical Christian community along with their surviving parents, relatives and assorted friends. The chapter headings signify whose POV we will encounter, and they mostly alternate between the two. The main secondary character is Mark, who is a veteran of the Falklands War and is a youth counsellor for their religious community and who holds separate weekly Bible study classes at his flat.
The main story does involve Robert's perception that he is seeing a presence and a manifestation which he seeks to exorcize with the help of his friends. This is mostly handled from Robert's POV so you might believe that it is due to Robert's own mental health issue. Tracey interacts with it as well though, and it also appears to have knowledge that it shouldn't, so an actual demonic possession could be the case. Your own beliefs will likely influence your acceptance of one or other here. Saying much further would be a spoiler, but I'll just add that slightly similar to New Cold Climate, the end of the book makes a time jump to show the end results.
While this might all seem serious and supernatural, the main focus is on the community, the kids lives and their joy and love of music. A favourite section for me was Tracey (who is a drummer in their occasional pickup bands) trying to work out the drum patterns of New Order's Blue Monday (1983) which is, of course, played by a machine in the original. If you've ever loved that song or perhaps played in any band trying to work out how to copy a song, then perhaps you'll understand why this is obsessive fun stuff for me. Non-pop-music fans may not understand.
Also I simply liked that the Christian faith of the characters was not something to be mocked or sneered at. It was simply accepted, just as all faiths should be. I'm not particularly religious myself, and even lean a bit to my Estonian heritage animistic roots, so this bias isn't from any fanatical point of view from me.
Anyway, this is another winner from Weatherglass, and I've already subscribed to their 2nd year of releases. The current schedule lays out a plan of 3 releases per year, and the 3rd release of 2021 will be the non-fiction What They Heard, by [a:Luke Meddings|5582456|Luke Meddings|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], expected later in September 2021.
Other Reviews
The Angels of L19 by Ian Mond, Locus Magazine, September 3, 2021.
Book Review: The Angels of L19 by Jackie Law, Never Imitate, August 20, 2021.
An Ambitious Flawed Experiment by Nina Allen, The Guardian, August 12, 2021.
* Canadian nerd confession. The title code letter-number meant nothing to me. I waited throughout the entire book to learn its secret meaning. Various absurd theories went through my mind. Did the L mean 50 written in Roman numerals? Was there a Bible book with 50 Chapters with a significant 19th verse? Did Leviticus 19 have a special meaning? After finishing the book with no answer, I finally googled "What does L19 mean in Liverpool, England?" to get my answer. It turns out it is just a postal code for a part of Liverpool. Yes, OK, laugh if you want to.
I've never read a book quite like this before, that so expertly and perfectly integrates the faith of its characters into their characterization. What I mean is that these teenagers live relatively normal teenage lives, but their view of those lives is conditioned through their faith in ways that they're both aware of not aware of. Many stories written from the perspective of evangelical characters present these characters as overly self-conscious of how they're constructing their worldview—of making choices to see the world in a certain way. Walker knows that, at least for his teenaged characters, even bouts of doubt are ultimately ways of joggling loose faith when it's stuck. It makes each of these characters so much more affecting and human, even though their perspective becomes increasingly alien over the course of the novel. Even when it turns into surprisingly graphic body horror, it remains one of the best (and, to be frank, most moving) explorations of evangelical interiority I've ever read. A book I'm certain I'll return to many times.