Going in a completely different direction this week, we’re leaving the undead behind and are looking in a more heavenly direction. Angels in fiction can be good or bad, can answer to a higher power or have fallen from grace. Here to tell us all about angels is Tamela Buhrke, author of the Watcher series and general angel expert.
Angels Among Us
Did you know that nearly eighty percent of Americans believe in angels? That’s almost the same percentage of Americans who believe we landed on the moon.
So angels have a strong influence over our culture. They’ve announced the coming of important events. They guard the gates to heaven. Bad ones even guard the gates of hell.
Most importantly, we know that anyone who is anyone has a guardian angel. Eighty percent of Americans can’t be wrong.
But in the couple of decades, angel culture has gone terribly wrong. No more halos and harps for these winged bad boys. Now angels are sporting black feathers and getting tattoos. The more emo versions are moping around in trench coats, hiding their wings in shadows and pining after human demon hunters.
These angry, sullen creatures aren’t just at war with fallen angels. They are jealous of the favors God has bestowed upon humanity. Most of them are eager to bring on the apocalypse. A few even think God is dead and it’s their turn to rule earth.
Which leads me to speculate that the thing all angels have in common is an unwavering belief in their own righteousness. They know what needs to be done and they do it—regardless of it being wrong or completely narcissistic.
My characters are mostly nephilim, human-angel hybrids, but they communicate with angels. My protagonist, Andi, was raised as a human and only recently discovered her true origins. So she has few delusions of her own grandeur. She trips and falls and gets back up again. She tries not to tell others how they should live.
This pisses off her fellow nephilim, who have a serious case of angelic self-righteousness. She soon uncovers the bad boy side of her own people.
The fun part is that self righteous people/creatures are easily manipulated. Just tell them how right they are and then slip in some ideas on how you think they can be even more right and you’re wielding your own personal weapons of righteousness—flaming swords and all!
And with much tripping and falling and confusion, Andi will discover that it’s not her angelic side that saves the world. It’s the compassion of her human nature.
You see, as long as we believe that perfect creatures roam the world, saving us from ourselves, we run the risk of forgetting that we are the ones in charge.
Because isn’t it humans that will ultimately determine the fate of humanity?
Nah, eighty percent of Americans can’t be wrong.
Tamela Buhrke is author of an urban fantasy series called The Watcher Series. The first two books of the series, Angel Unraveled and Angel Unprepared, can be found on Amazon. Her third book of the series, Angel Unleashed, is set to release the beginning of August. She is currently working on a paranormal thriller series to be released this fall.
