Angry God

This dark and somber contemporary, the third in Shen’s All Saints series (after Broken Knight), pairs two tempestuous artists with a complicated history. Lenora Astalis is 12 and at her father’s prestigious British art school when she sees genius fellow student Vaughn Spencer, 13, in a compromising moment that she doesn’t fully understand—and he threatens to kill her if she ever tells anyone. The pair are reunited as high school seniors in California, where Lenora is determined not to cower before Vaughn like when she was a child. They clash dramatically as they compete for prestigious opportunities after graduation. When they’re accepted into the same program, they’re forced to live together in a British castle. An uneasy peace gives way to deep passion as secrets emerge and the painful emotional truth that Vaughn hides behind his heartless veneer comes to light, bonding him and Lenora irrevocably. It’s incredibly difficult to like Vaughn at first, with Shen setting him up as a truly cruel individual before slowly humanizing him over the course of the novel and showing how Lenora’s love provides him a safe space to let his guard down. Readers will need to be prepared to face heavy topics including violence, rape, and childhood sexual abuse. This is not for the faint of heart. Agent: Kimberly Brower, Brower Literary. (Dec.)