Angel: Letters of Esther (The Romans Series Book 2) by C.L. Rosario; Female Centered Companion Book to Bromantic Contemporary Fantasy
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.
Spoilers: C.L. Rosario’s previous book, And Then They Fell in Rome was a Magical Realism Contemporary Fantasy novel about a circle of male friends called The Troubadours who receive word from a mysterious stranger known only as La Bruja (“The Witch” or “The Stranger “) who tells them that they need to help Jean Luis Larose, one of their own, to find love before he dies. What followed was a lovely thought provoking meditative look at fate, synchronicity, coincidence, magic, romance, true love, and the importance of maintaining a good friendship. It was an excellent book that captured the male group of friends. I would describe it as not just a Romance novel but a Bromance novel.
Well if one focuses only on one party in a Romance novel, they are really telling only half of the story. In And Then They Fell in Rome, we are given insights about many of the female characters and are given as much depth and agency as their male counterparts so they aren't just shallow love interests. However, they are largely seen from the perspective of the male characters so compared to them, they are cyphers. Well written cyphers but cyphers none the less.
Rosario's next book, Angel: Letters of Esther more than makes up for that lack. In fact, I wouldn't even call it a sequel so much as it is a companion piece. It takes the same story and gives a largely female perspective. It focuses mostly on Esther Consuelos, Jan Luis’ potential love interest. We also get some solid insights into La Bruja who now has a name, Ariel, and some potential clues to her real identity.
This volume also provides a more streamlined narration that is easier to follow. It mostly focuses on Jan Luis and gives the rest of The Troubadours smaller, more supporting roles. It loses the complexity of the previous novel but since Jan Luis is the central Troubadour in both books, it makes sense that his story would wrap up in this volume.
Jan Luis and Esther meet at the Miami Grand Prix. The two click but a strange discovery about a shared coincidence from their paths suggest that there are higher powers at work bringing them together. An eventful weekend causes the couple to weigh their passions, faith, goals, intimacy, desires, standards, and the division between body, heart, and soul to find out what they really want in life and if they are compatible.
Both Jan Luis and Esther come across as fully developed characters. Since Jan Luis is the sole major Troubadour in this book, we are mostly exposed to his life and views. Technically, there isn't anything entirely new to Jan Luis that we didn't know before from his past. Even the strange previous connection between the two lovers was revealed in the previous book. We are familiar with Jan Luis’s past. This book is more interested in his present.
As we remember in the previous book, he had yet to be paired off though his friends were. This book shows him moving from a hard edged cynic thinking that he is better off alone to a romantic who is open to the possibility of letting love into his life. It is a character trajectory that transforms him into the person that La Bruja and the Troubadours envisioned that he would become.
Jan Luis's strongest moments occur when he is alone and away from his initial peer group of The Troubadours. Since they are moved to the side and reduced to supporting characters, this book deals with what happens when friendships recede and characters grow up and move on.
The previous book was the be all and end all of their friendship at times even eclipsing their romantic relationships. It reveals the universal truth that sometimes friendships are more important than romance. This book shows the opposite.
What happens when friends let other people and situations in their lives and phase out the original group. They don't do this out of meanness or because of fights but because of different circumstances, busy schedules, more people and commitments, and maturity. They have entered lives that are harder, more complicated, and busier. Sometimes early relationships fall away.
The Troubadours’s bond is still close and they still have some great reunions but they have evolved. Jan Luis can't rely on them as much as he used to. He spends most of his time in Rome with a new group of friends and has other interests, other goals, and other problems that have moved him far from his honorary brothers. It's a time where he has to figure out who he is without any help from his old friends.
As I mentioned this is practically the female counterpart to And Then They Fell in Rome and it shows. Esther is by far the most developed character. She has many different facets to her character that reveals her complexities and depth.
She is a publicist for Formula One so she carries a very high class, fast living, public, athletic and energetic presence on the job. The kind that doesn't mind frequent travel and hobnobbing with classy elite individuals watching the races as well as managing the information on drivers and crews who work at them. It also breaks quite a few barriers to read about a woman involved in the still mostly male dominated world of auto racing. Her strong willed tough personality reveals herself as a woman who will not accept being sidelined or mansplained so of course she would excel in such a world.
There are also softer edges to Esther's character largely through her spiritual beliefs and questions about higher concepts. She is religious and considers herself as a “Christian but not that kind of Christian.” She is very accepting towards people and views that her religion is highly critical of. She uses it instead to aspire herself to live a decent charitable kind life.
However, she has high standards mostly towards herself. She has specific views about sexuality, intimacy, love, and marriage. They are resolute but she is wavering. There are many times when Esther’s emotions and desires take over and she questions whether she has the views because of her faith in Christian doctrine or fear of being in a relationship. Is she putting off close relationships for her God or herself?
One of the most intriguing subplots is when Esther reunites with an ex. The potential for a rekindled romance is there even though she still loves Jan Luis and he is involved with a friend of hers. But more importantly than the romantic aspects are the deep conversations between them over quantum physics and higher consciousness. They open Esther to other possibilities and move her faith forward from the binary either or interpretation that she previously held.
These conversations also bring awareness of the magical realism that surrounds the narrative. Through most of the book, the magical realism is more subdued as compared to its predecessor. Mostly it's reduced to revelations about what happened in the previous book and conversations about those topics. These conversations offer different theories about fate, coincidence, predestiny, and synchronicity.
This volume posts different theories and analysis without fully committing to one or the other. The characters live in a potentially fantastic world and this book provides a potential key for them to understand it. It's almost like the first book showed the magic while the second book gives the realism, the answers to the previous book’s questions.
The magic returns as Ariel does to the narration. Now she has a name and a private life of people who know her and assist her in her endeavors. Before, there were possibilities that she didn't exist or wasn't even human. Now we know more about her and while she is still enigmatic and ethereal, she is more well rounded and more human in personality (though maybe not in reality).
There is an intriguing reveal about Ariel and a motivation over why it was so important for Jan Luis to fall in love. It won't be spoiled here and while somewhat arbitrary at first, in hindsight both books succinctly led to this twist. It becomes not a shocking twist but a natural resolution to two books where circumstances are never coincidence, where people are fated to meet in the right place, time, and right moment, where Higher Powers are watching and give signals for those who observe and listen, and where magic and realism exist side by side. Just like two lovers, they are destined to be together.
