The Paperbackers

Have you heard of Nephilim? Don’t bother juggling your Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer lexicons,Nephilim are brand new,courtesy of Danielle Trussoni’s Angelology (Penguin,Rs 399).

Angels were born before man was created,but Trussoni cuts to the chase in Angelology. It is 1999 and Sister Evangeline,23,receives a request by a certain Mr Verlaine to access the archives of her convent of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (phew!). She does a bit of research and stumbles upon documents about the “Rhodope Expedition”. Secrets tumble out: there are Angels and there are hybrids known as Nephilim,offspring of Angels and humans. While Angels are pure,the Nephilim retain human traits,such as greed and hunger for power. There’s battle between the two and on the side of Angels are humans known as Angelologists,theological scientists who study the life of Angels. Evangeline discovers that her parents were Angelologists. Verlaine doesn’t know he has been hired by a Nephilim,Percival Grigori,who needs to know the secret of the Angels’ most divine instrument,a lyre,that will cure him of a crippling disease. If you still don’t know whose side you need to be on,here’s a pointer. Remember the massacre of the “prisoners of war” by the British to quell the mutiny of 1857,where they tied up people to cannon mouths and blew them to bits? In Angelology,the man behind that was a Nephilim,Sir Arthur Grigori.

Will this make a better film than a book? Yes and maybe. After the book was released last month,Columbia and Universal Pictures fought for the movie rights,with Columbia winning. The only trouble with the book is that there is too much happening and the reader has to constantly make reference notes while racing from chapter to chapter.

In Zizou Corder’s Halo (Puffin UK,6.99 pounds),the protagonist is discovered as a baby by centaurs in ancient Greece. Halo is brought up as their own and grows up to be a young girl,frolicking with her centaur siblings. Her identity remains a secret and,hence,it does become rather troublesome to understand why she is dragged away by fishermen. In order to survive,Halo disguises herself as a boy but soon embarks on a journey to find out who she really is. Zizou Corder is the shared nom de plume of British novelist Louisa Young and her teenage daughter Isabel Adomakoh Young who got rave reviews for their previous Lion Boy. Halo is targeted at teens,but stands no chance in this Twilight era.