Shadows in the Silence, by Courtney Allison Moulton

- Angelfire #3
Release date: January 3rd 2013
Published by: Katherine Tegen Books
Genre: Young Adult
Find it on: Goodreads

Your strength in heart and hand will fall. . . .
Ellie knows that the darkest moments are still to come, and she has everything to fight for:

She must fight for Will.
The demonic have resorted to their cruelest weapons to put Will in mortal danger, and Ellie makes an unlikely alliance to save him and to stop Lilith and Sammael, who seek to drown the world in blood and tear a hole into Heaven.

She must fight for humanity.
As the armies of Hell rise and gather for the looming End of Days, Ellie and her band of allies travel to the world’s darkest and most ancient regions in her quest to come into her full glory as the archangel Gabriel.

And Ellie must save herself.
Her humanity withers beneath the weight of her cold archangel power, but Ellie must hold tight to who she is and who she loves as she prepares for the ultimate battle for Heaven and Earth.

I don't know whether to cry or jump in joy. Angelfire is one of my favorite series (trilogies, actually) and to know that Shadows in the Silence was the last book is pretty heartbreaking. However, I'm happy with the way things ended. Courtney Allison Moulton just proved herself yet again as a magnificent writer. I might not make justice to her work, but I'll sure as hell try. 

In this installment, things are a lot darker than before. Nathaniel is dead, Ellie's parents are dead, and she has nobody except Will to rely on. You can feel how much this fight against Hell has worn Ellie out. She's exhausted. And now, to make things even worse, Will has been poisoned by a reaper poison, and it's up to her to look for a cure with Cadan's assistance. 

I should probably start this review by saying that I loved Cadan in this novel. He was everything Ellie needed him to be, and the fact that he was helping her, that he was in love with her, but a love triangle was never even mentioned made things a lot more comforting. Yes, I felt sorry for Cadan a lot of times, but I was relieved that Mrs. Moulton didn't go down that route. Instead, she tried to explore Cadan's character a lot more deeply, and with that, she raised a very disturbing question: Are all demonic reapers really bad? 

And that, my friends, is one of the reasons I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. In Angelfire and Wings of the Wicked, we saw the demonic as horrendous creatures, who only tried to harm humans and aid Bastian. And now... with Cadan, everything has changed. It's like my point of view changed right along with Ellie's, and that is extraordinary. I was loving Cadan and rooting for him before I even knew what was going on.

It was crazy!

And you know what else was crazy? Will. Yes, you've heard me right. Will was just a crazy character in Shadows in the Silence. As Ellie got closer to the end of the war, and began to realize that the only way to stop Bastin was to call upon her archangel power (and loose herself in the process) Will began to scare me. He said some things that screamed "co-dependent Twilight-y relationship", and I admit I panicked. However - and thankfully - Mrs. Moulton also didn't go down that route. As morbid as this may sound, I actually understood Will's position in the matter. If Ellie died and never came back, he would be destroyed. His soul would be destroyed, and he'd never be the same again - but not because of some ridiculous insta-love (yes, Edward, I'm looking right at ya), but because he'd known Ellie for five hundred  years. For five hundred years, he had devoted his entire life to the simple task of protecting and serving her - and loving her. If Ellie were to just die, part of him would die with her. And I found that incredibly endearing. And a little disturbing, but like I said, it made sense. 

As the action scenes and the dialogues got more and more intense, it became obvious the fact that the end of the war was near. And boy, let me tell you, the final battle was just incredible. I'm not saying this because I was deeply invested in the characters, I'm telling you this because it's the absolute truth. The ending of this novel is intense. It's full of pain, agony, love, heartbreak, loss, and most of all, sacrifice. It's perfect. Characters die, blood is spilled, but by the time you finish reading this incredible series, you just get the sense that it's over, and that it's okay. Because after such a huge climax, you're ready to let these characters go. 

Courtney Allison Moulton is a sensational writer, and I'm so glad I decided to pick Angelfire up two years ago. I'm glad I took the time to devour this trilogy - otherwise, I wouldn't have fallen in love with Will, I wouldn't have grown to love Ellie and root for her so much, and I wouldn't have become so invested in the secondary characters - Cadan, Nathaniel, Eva, even Bastian. If you're wondering if Shadows in the Silence is a good ending to this trilogy, rest assured: It is. Just pick it up and read it. What the hell are you waiting for?