Angel Falling Softly by Eugene Woodbury

"Over the past six months, Rachel Forsythe's perfect life has descended from the ideal to the tragic. The younger of her two daughters is dying of cancer. Despite her standing as the wife of a respected Mormon bishop, neither God nor medical science has blessed her with a cure. Or has He?

"Milada Daranyi, chief investment officer at Daranyi Enterprises International, has come to Utah to finalize the takeover of a Salt Lake City-based medical technology company. Bored with her downtown hotel accommodations, she rents a house in the Salt Lake City suburbs.

"And then the welcome wagon shows up. Her neighbors perceive her to be a beautiful, intelligent, and daunting young woman. But Rachel senses something about Milada that leads her in a completely different-and very dangerous-direction.

"Rachel's suspicions are right: Milada is homo lamia. A vampire. Fallen. And possibly the only person in the world who can save Rachel's daughter. Uncovering Milada's secrets, Rachel becomes convinced that, as Milton writes, "all this good of evil shall produce."

"As the two women push against every moral boundary in order to protect their families, the price of redemption will prove higher than either of them could have possibly imagined."

Angel Falling Softly examines human nature at its most basic level. What lengths would you got to to save the ones you love? How strong is your faith when pushed to your limits? Rachel has to answer all these questions for herself when her daughter lies at death's door. She knows death is not the tragic event the world may make it out to be, but it doesn't change her desire to have her daughter around longer. She knows what she is doing is wrong and won't even talk to her husband about it. Milada also has to take a look at the direction her own life is going and how she got there.

The author didn't provide enough background for Milada and her sisters and it would have been nice if the virus that caused them to become vampires was a little more fully explained. It was a little confusing at times. I also found the sex scenes a little graphic for my taste. Compared to the national market, they were very tame, but still not something I enjoyed reading - especially the two scenes with lesbian overtones. In a book written by an LDS writer about LDS people, the scenes seemed horribly out of place.

As for the story, it was interesting and I thought the characters did change and develop over time. We all make decisions and have to live with the consequences. In the end, Rachel gets her wish, but at what price?

This book has good storyline and fascinating characters. It's just a story but it raises interesting questions about our behavior in extreme situations.

Unfortunately, even though I thought the plot line was interesting and the story brought up some good questions, because of the sexual content and some bad language, I won't recommend this book to my readers.