Fall From Grace by Matthew Munson

Fall From Grace is the debut novel by Thanet-based author Matthew Munson. The book follows the protagonist, Paul, his friend, Joseph, and Joseph’s sister, Lauren, as they are swept into a world of angels.

The book is well-written and the characters are thoroughly developed and grow throughout. My first impressions were that the main character, Paul, was almost a cliche; a man questioning his faith and struggling to find his place in the world without his god. I thought: He’s going to meet some angels, get his faith back and everything will be hunky dory. I’m glad to say that I was wrong. While the book does start as the cliched man questioning his faith, Matthew does a great job of expanding this into something more than that, and creating a fully-fledged set of characters.

The majority of the book being set in Thanet also adds something special to the reading experience if you’re a local. The characters interacting with areas that I know made me a little giddy, weirdly.

And then the Christian mythology hits you.

Before you get annoyed about me referring to Christianity as mythology, in this book I feel the writer has created his own mythos. There are some parts of the book that you would recognise from Christianity, particularly Catholicism (the angels share names with those in the Bible) but Matthew managed to create his own version of what, for this series at least, he wanted the Heavens to be. He took biblical concepts and turned them on his head. I applaud him for that. The story that has been crafted is perhaps one of the best versions of Christian beliefs that I’ve ever encountered.

There is a sequel to Fall From Grace, called Leap of Faith, that is just as good, and I would highly recommend the series to anybody who’s interested in literature of a science fiction/fantasy nature. It’s worth taking the time to give it a read.