Spirit Fighter (Son of Angels)

Title: Spirit Fighter

Series: Son of Angels (Book #1)

Year: 2012

Author: Jerel Law

Summary: Your mom always said you were an angel. What if she was right? 

Jonah Stone has always thought of himself as average, but in seventh grade he learns a fascinating family secret, and his world turns upside down. Jonah’s mom is a nephilim, the daughter of a human and a fallen angel, which makes Jonah one-quarter angel. When his mom is kidnapped by fallen angels, it’s up to Jonah and his sister Eliza to rescue her. Guided by prayer and a guardian angel, Jonah and Eliza embark on an epic adventure through the streets of New York and come to understand that God plans in ways they never could have imagined. Spirit Fighter, Book 1 in the Son of Angels: Jonah Stone series, is an imaginative adventure that is based on scripture in the book of Genesis. (from Goodreads)

Main Characters:
~ Jonah Stone
~ Eliza Stone

Review: I found this book via Goodreads, and as it was advertised as a "Christian" Percy Jackson, I'd thought I'd try it out. And as far as the advertising goes, I think it's right on the head. Jonah Stone is just what you'd want him to be.

Jonah just wants to be a normal teenager. However, being normal is far from the family he was born into. Nope, his mother is half angel (what is called a nephilim), and Jonah and his two siblings are quarter angels. And then his mom is kidnapped, and Jonah learns that he and Eliza have been chosen to go after her. They each have their angel powers to help protect them, and accompanying them is their family's guardian angel, Henry.

In some ways, this book reminded me greatly of Percy Jackson. Ready for some similarities? 

• Kidnapped mother (duh, that's a given)
• Super cool powers (Percy has water powers, while Jonah has super strength and speed)
• Fights with creatures no normal person can see (Percy - mythological creatures; Jonah - fallen angels)
• Creepy old ladies with knitting needles
• New York
• Trouble in school
• And so on...

See? Very Percy Jackson-ish. Even the writing style was light and fun like Rick Riordan's. But for Jerel Law's credit, he did a good job in creating something that seemed familiar, but was unique in a special way. The whole plot revolved around the kidnapping of Jonah's mother, a nephilim. The fallen angels have a dark plan in which they require her specifically, and Jonah and Eliza must rescue her before that big plan can go into action. No, I'm not going to tell you the plan, because that would be spoilers, and because only half of the plan is released in book one. I need to read the second book, Fire Prophet, and discover what happens next!

From what I've heard about Frank Peretti's Piercing the Darkness (I have yet to read that book, but I will get around to it one of these days), I think this book would fall under that same sort of genre. It's set in the real world, yet it clearly shows that there's a spiritual battle going on that not many people are aware of. Within our world is a spiritual realm in which angels battle the Fallen. The motive? Men's souls. The angels guide and encourage, while the Fallen yearn to bring men down into the pit of darkness. It's a very deep topic, yet I think the author did a wonderful job here introducing this to young readers. 

Now, I did give this book only three stars. Please note that I thoroughly enjoyed it, but... well, it just wasn't a favorite for me. I liked it well enough to want to finish the series, but I don't know that I'll re-read them. But that's just me. I've read some reviews in which readers had no qualms about giving this book a full five stars.

Advisory: Action as Jonah and Eliza battle angels of darkness and their cohorts. In one scene, they encounter a large octopus of sorts (I forget what it was called -- it's pictured on the cover). 

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars 

Click here to buy Spirit Fighter on Amazon!