Angel [Kindle Edition]

I absolutely loved this. It's unexpected, at times quirky, very funny and totally readable. Damion is so beautiful that everybody falls in love with him, with ultimately tragic consequences. It's almost like a Dorian Gray for our time, and it has a lot to say about our obsession with youth and appearance. There's a wide array of characters present here, a bit like in the early books by John Irving (Garp, Owen Meany) and they're treated with the same humanity and insight. Totally recommended.

Sebastian Michael's novel, 'Angel', is a great achievement; beautifully written and thoroughly engaging.

At face value it is the story of a young man so beautiful that "anyone who met him fell instantly in love with him". His emergence from boyhood is described with an astonishing sympathy for the experience of adolescence. The author has a great gift for subtle and commanding characterisation, one result of which is our developing appreciation of the burden of beauty on the 'hero' of the tale and all who come into contact with him. Events are beautifully described with a perspicacity for place and sensation.

On another level, 'Angel' can be read as an allegory of a society concerned largely with the superficial. Here value is determined by Beauty and the consequence of a great surfeit in power created by fundamental inequalities between people is explored in the trajectories of human lives. 'Angel' raises questions of responsibility and agency, as those privileged by society try to claim some responsibility for what appears to be pre-determined lives. We are asked to consider to what extent we can be responsible for the impact of our existence.

'Angel' is compelling and curious, an intelligent inquiry and a sensual pleasure. Its characters and their experiences feel immediately real and they also resonate over time remaining with the reader: so true is the author's ability with narrative and character. With 'Angel', Sebastian Michael has produced a novel that is a pleasure to read, that has depth and detail, and that raises some of the important questions for the contemporary moment. The ultimate meaning of 'Angel' will be a subject of debate between readers, as is inevitable with a novel that works so well on many levels.

Alana Jelinek - Author of Ohm's Law