“Archangel” eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Margaret Fortune (https://margaretfortune.wordpress.com). Ms. Fortune has published two novels, both in her “Spectre War” series, this being the second book in the series.

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence. Because of the age of the primary character, this might be considered a Young Adult novel, but the story content is pretty vivid. The story is set in the far future. Mankind has spread out through the stars and have finally encountered an extraterrestrial life form that seems bent on their destruction. The primary character is seventeen year old Celestial Expanse Guardian First Class Michael Sorenson.

The Celestial Expanse has been at war with the Tellurian Alliance. Suddenly they find themselves faced with a far deadlier enemy, the Spectres. The Spectres have wiped out the Tellurian Alliance and is now slowly gaining ground against the forces of the Celestial Expanse. They are invisible to the eye, drifting about but able to take over a human’s mind, then breed new Spectres to infect others.

Sorenson is recruited to a secret R&D facility within the Celestial Expanse. He and his colleagues are the front line in testing and evaluating new weapons to be used against the Spectres. Slowly Sorenson begins to find clues that there is a traitor at work within the R&D facility. No evidence is strong enough to involved his chain of command. As the R&D facility rushes towards testing a new weapon which they think will kill off the Spectres, there is also concern that the Spectres are about to mount some kind of offensive of their own.

Will Sorenson identify the traitor? Will the new weapon finally succeed in killing Spectres? Will humanity survive what ever the Spectres have planed?

I enjoyed the nearly 13 hours I spent reading this 461 page Science Fiction novel. While this is the second in the series, it read well as a stand-alone novel. I liked the way the characters were developed and the plot itself. The cover are is reasonable showing Sorenson in his battle armor. I give this novel a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.

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