Review of "The Ninth Choir" by C. Pascual

 

Title: The Ninth Choir
Author: C. Pascual 
Release date: June 6, 2026
Rating: DNF
Publisher: None listed
Book Summary:

Miriam is a five-hundred-year-old elemental witch who appears to be twenty-six. She has a foul temper, a hardened heart, a dark soul, and 500 years’ worth of secrets stashed away. She believes in angels because she sees them every day going about their jobs. She may also be the most powerful thing walking the Earth. She just doesn’t know it yet.

She has spent much of her existence in service to a creature who could be the devil, if the devil exists. She has feared him since the day he saved her from burning on a pyre.

Only recently has Miriam begun to understand what she actually is.
When Miriam saves Anna, a young woman who believes she is an angel, her world changes.

And someone is trying to kill all the angels on this world.
In a small white cottage on A Street in Saint Augustine Beach, a defrocked priest, a teenage Archangel, Miriam and her sister witches, and a Creator who has managed 101,403 worlds are about to do something that has never been done before. Save the angels.

Some will tell you that there are no such things as angels.
And that might be.

But if there were, they would be exactly like the ones in this story.

The Ninth Choir. Book One of a series.

Review:  
I had a difficult time getting into the story. 

In the first few pages there was a lot of assumption that I, the reader, would understand the character's vocabulary and the governing bodies in her world.

While the world and characters seem like an interesting concept, it's hard to follow the narrative. The author frequently jumps in and out of time periods and character points of view. The writing feels detached, and does a lot of "telling" instead of showing. I'm not sure if this is due to the nature of the overall main character, Ena, being a detached being, but as a reader it was hard to feel attached to any portion of the story of the plight of the character.  

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to review the story.