An Angel for Emily (G K Hall Large Print Book Series) [Hardcover]

Jude Deveraux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1998 | Series: G K Hall Large Print Book Series

Emily Jane Todd has just found her guardian angel. But when he reveals that he can look into souls, Emily is ready to risk heaven in his arms.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jude Deveraux is the author of thirty-seven New York Times bestsellers, including Lavender Morning, Return to Summerhouse, Secrets, Someone to Love, Wild Orchids, Holly, The Mulberry Tree, The Summerhouse, and Temptation. To date, there are more than 50 million copies of her books in print worldwide. She lives in North Carolina. --This text refers to the Unknown Binding edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Chapter 1: The Mountains of North Carolina, 1998

"I am going to kill him," Emily Jane Todd muttered; then, her voice rising, she said louder, "Kill him! Murder him. Tear him limb from limb!" She pounded her fist on the car steering wheel, but even as angry energy filled her, she felt it leave as she remembered her humiliation of tonight. And the embarrassment renewed her anger.

"Did they just give me the award because I'm going to marry Donald?" she said out loud as she swung the car around a sharp curve in the road. When one wheel hit the gravel of the shoulder she took a deep breath and told herself to slow down. But even as she let up on the gas, her foot came back down on the pedal harder and she took the next curve even faster.

When she whizzed too close past a tree in the darkness of the moonless night, she felt tears cloud her eyes. This night had meant a lot to her. Maybe being honored by the National Library Association was nothing to Donald, but it was everything to Emily. So maybe delivering free books to rural areas in the Appalachian Mountains was nothing to a big deal newscaster like Donald, but it's what took up a lot of Emily's time -- as well as nearly all of her money -- and she had been thrilled to have someone notice what she was doing.

As the tears started to obscure Emily's vision, she dashed them away -- sure she was smearing her mascara, but who was to see it now? She was driving back to a romantic little inn that had sherry and date cookies in each room. There were antique chests and flowered bedspreads, and the room had cost her a fortune. But she was going to spend tonight there alone!

"I should have known that everything was going wrong when they gave me a room with two beds," she said aloud, then heard her car hit the gravel shoulder again. "It was the beginning of the worst week and in --"

She broke off because as she came around another sharp curve in the road, trees closing in on her on both sides, standing smack in the middle of the road was a man, his hand shielding his eyes from her headlights. Emily swerved. With all her might, she swung the wheel to the right trying not to hit him. She'd rather wrap herself around a tree than hit another human being, but suddenly, the man seemed to be between her and the side of the road. She swung to the left, back toward the center of the road, but she was going too fast for the car to respond.

When she hit the man, she felt a sickness inside her such as she'd never felt before. There was no sound in the world like that of a car hitting human flesh.

Emily felt like it took hours instead of seconds to get the car stopped, and her seat belt unfastened before she leaped out and started running. The headlights provided the only illumination in the blackness and her heart was pounding. She could see nothing.

"Where are you?" she choked out, feeling frantic and very frightened.

"Here," she heard a whisper, then she went tearing down the side of the steep embankment that ran alongside the road. Her long, beige satin dress caught on every fallen branch, and her high-heeled sandals sunk into the soft leaf mold covering the floor of the woods, but she kept going.

He had fallen -- or been knocked -- several feet down the hill, so it took Emily a while to find him, and then she almost stepped on him. Dropping to her knees, she had to feel him to see what part of him was where, since the trees blocked the light from the car above. She felt an arm, then his chest and finally reached his head. "Are you all right? Are you all right?" she kept asking as she ran her hands over his face. There was dampness on his face, but she couldn't tell if it was blood or sweat or from the moisture of the forest.

When she heard him groan, all she felt was relief. At least he wasn't dead! Why, oh, why hadn't she purchased the cell phone Donald had wanted her to get? But she'd been selfish and said that if she had a phone in her car, Donald would talk to everyone but her.

"Can you get up?" she asked, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. "If I leave you here to go call for help, I'm afraid I won't find this place again. Please tell me you're all right."

The man turned his head in her hands. "Emily?" he said softly.

At that, Emily sat back on her heels and tried to look at him. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness somewhat, but she still couldn't see his face clearly. "How do you know my name?" she asked, and every horrible news report she'd ever heard Donald give on TV went through her head. Was this man a serial killer who faked injuries in order to lure women to their doom?

Before she knew what she was doing she had shifted her body to run back up the hill to the car. Had she left the engine running? Or had it stalled when she'd stopped so abruptly? Could she get away from him if he made a grab for her?

"I won't hurt you," the man said as he tried to sit up.

Emily was torn between wanting to help him and wanting to run away as fast as she could. Suddenly, his hand gripped her wrist and the decision was no longer hers to make.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice hoarse. "You were driving very fast. You could have hit a tree and been hurt."

Emily blinked at him in the darkness. First he knew her name, now he knew how fast she was driving. I must get out of here, she thought, and again looked up the hill toward the car. She could see a tiny ray of light through the trees. Would the headlights drain the battery too much for the car to start?

Still holding onto her wrist, the man tried to sit up, but Emily didn't help him. There was something very strange about him that just made her want to get away.

"This body feels awful," he said as he raised himself into a sitting position.

"Yes, being hit by a car is indeed dreadful," she said, her voice rising as her fear increased with each second.

"You're afraid of me," the man said, his tone one of disbelief. It was almost as though he expected her to know him.

"I . . . I'm not really afraid . . ." she began, thinking that she should pacify him.

"Yes you are. I can feel it. It shines from you. Emily, how could you -- "

"How do you know my name?!" she half shouted.

He was rubbing his head as though it hurt him a great deal. "I've always known your name. You're one of mine."

That does it! she thought, and with a sudden wrench, she pulled away from his grip and started running up the hill toward the car.

But she didn't get very far before he caught her about the waist and pulled her into his arms to hold her close. "Ssssh," he said. "Be calm. You can't be afraid of me, Emily. We have known each other too long."

Oddly enough, his touch began to calm her, but at the same time, his words disturbed her.

"Who are you?" she asked, her mouth against his shoulder. "Michael," he said, as though she should have known that.

"I don't know any Michael." Why wasn't she struggling to get away? she wondered, even as she leaned against him. Who was it who had been hit by the car, anyway?

"You know me," he said softly, his hand entangling in her hair. She'd had it put up for the awards ceremony tonight, but it had come down and was now hanging in a mass about her neck. "I'm your guardian angel and we have been together for a thousand years."

For a moment, Emily stood where she was, safe in the circle of his arms, and didn't move. Then what he'd said began to penetrate her brain -- and laughter began to bubble up inside her. Laughter was what she needed after this horrible day. What should have been a great honor for her had turned into a great humiliation and had ended with her hitting a man with her car.

A man who now claimed he was her guardian angel.

Copyright © 1998 by Deveraux, Inc. --This text refers to the Unknown Binding edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: G K Hall & Co (December 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783801858
• ISBN-13: 978-0783801858
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,849,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jude Deveraux was once a fifth-grade teacher who loved to read. When her imagination began to be filled with her own stories to tell, her career as a writer began. Jude's novels have been set in both contemporary and historical periods. Her strong, lyrical writing style and ability to write stories with memorable characters, rich detail, and believable dialogue has garnered her many devoted readers.

Jude has had over thirty books on the New York Times bestsellers list, has over 60 million copies in print, and has been translated into 18 languages. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading murder mysteries, working in her garden, and in boxing class she likes to show much younger males that she can throw a mean right cross.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The hero is adorable, but the story is disjointed, overblown and confusing..., May 19, 2006

By 

CoffeeGurl - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: An Angel for Emily (Mass Market Paperback)

I am a HUGE Jude Deveraux fan and have read and loved most of her novels. Her Montgomery/Taggert stories have been the best romances I have ever read because Jude adds her own unique style of romance with some original twists and great humor. Now that I've read all of the Montgomery novels (I still have some Taggert novellas left to read), I am giving her other stuff a whirl. I have noticed a decline of quality in her work. Her latest books don't have the magic of her earlier stuff. An Angel for Emily is a disaster, but it started out well. Emily Todd is a librarian with a charitable heart. One night, while driving, she fumes over the fact that her fiance had stood her up at an awards ceremony. She is so angry that she doesn't notice a man in the middle of the street and she runs him over. The man isn't injured though. She thinks he is insane when he tells her that he is an angel. When she is forced to spend time with him after finding out that "Michael Chamberlain" is wanted by the FBI (or at least the body he had entered is wanted by them) and someone is trying to kill her, she is wary of the feelings that develop between them. She is tempted to do things with the heavenly creature. After all, he is kind, gentle and loves children, but he is also gorgeous, sensual and struggling with a few temptations of his own. How could a heavenly spirit and a mere mortal ever get together? There are various twists throughout the novel.

The only thing I like about this novel is Michael. He is gorgeous and adorable and I enjoyed reading his explorations with food, people and those strange sensations that made him want to kiss Emily and do other things with her. The scenes in which he says he finds bathroom breaks a "nuisance" and dislikes the inconvenience of having to feed and rest "this body," as he often refers himself, are hilarious. Those aspects are lovely and Michael is quite endearing if a little too perfect for my taste. He sort of reminded me of Nicholas Stafford from A Knight in Shining Armor at times, except that Michael is nowhere near as well fleshed-out and compelling as the wonderful Nicholas. Emily, on the other hand, is a very one-dimensional heroine. She is just... there. There is nothing compelling or interesting about her -- very strange that Jude Deveraux created such a flimsy heroine. The only input we get about her is that she is "a good person" and likes to help others. She is too perfect and boring for me. Her fiance is too conveniently aloof and a jerk. Deveraux likes to create over the top secondary love interests in her novels, but they were written with much humor and irony, things that Donald lacks. As for the storyline, it is all over the place. There are numerous inconsistencies and what-the-hell moments here. For instance, Emily has a hard time believing Michael is an angel, which is understandable, and tries to explain his behavior by thinking that he may be a clairvoyant or a psychic. So... she couldn't believe he was an angel, yet she could have believed he was a clairvoyant or psychic?! Is being a psychic more believable than being an angel? Ick! In the first few chapters, Michael says that before he inhabited a human body, he was her guardian angel, but he could only see her spirit and not her body, and then a few chapters later he tells her that he not only had saved her life numerous times as her guardian angel, but he had also helped pick out a red dress once and thought she looked beautiful in it. The whole thing was very confusing. The author contradicted things too many times and the writing was too disjointed to be believable or enjoyable. The ending, to me, is the worst part. It is something not unlike Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Ugh. An Angel for Emily is by far JD's worst effort I've read thus far. I give it two stars because I liked Michael. The story, however, gets zero stars. To readers: if this is your first JD novel, don't give up. She is a wonderful writer and her historicals, especially the ones with the Montgomerys, are the best I've read in the genre. Good luck next time!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Where's the editor?, April 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: An Angel for Emily (Mass Market Paperback)

My question isn't, "What's happened to Ms. Deveraux?", it's "What's happened to her editor?" She's one of my all-time favorite authors, but reading her last few books has been like watching a train wreck you were powerless to prevent. The ideas are there; the stories have the potential for magic, but apparently her publisher has decided that once you reach a certain level of success, you no longer need editing. (Judith McNaught seems to be suffering from the same syndrome.) Please editors, help restore the voices of these once fabulous authors!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sorry Jude!!, January 24, 2003

By 

Heather D. Mushal (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Angel for Emily (Mass Market Paperback)

I couldn't make it through the first 4 chapters and trust me I tried so hard. This is the only book from Jude Deveraux I had to put down and couldn't pick back up. Boring a real snoozing book. Jude I love you babe but can't help you on this book. All the others were wonderful. I started with the Velvet Series and just worked my way down the list the rest are a must read but skip this book.