Memoir of a Death Angel

Aphrodite Anagnost is a first-generation Greek-American Maniot, descended from the ancient Dorian tribe of Spartans who hail from Areopolis. Her first employer was her horse riding teacher; and her second, her parents, who entertained Vegas acts in their barn-turned cosmopolitan restaurant next to the once famous Warwick Musical Summer Theatre. It was at the Country Inn Restaurant where Aphrodite learned to cook a lobster, mix a martini, serve celebrities, mingle with the Rhode Island mafia, wash dishes, and swab the deck. Later, her mother, Panagiota, gave her the American name "Frances" to make growing up easier. She has studied world religions, including the ancient Pagan practices of her ancestral clan of Maniates, and is a devout Orthodox Church member, though she believes all religions seek the truth. Later Dr. Frances Aphrodite Anagnost Willams worked as a laboratory assistant, chemistry tutor, dressage horse trainer, family physician, obesity specialist, hospitalist, medical examiner, and hospice director. She lives on a horse farm in rural Virginia with her horse-listener husband and extraordinary sons, Jack and Max.

MEMOIR OF A DEATH ANGEL is the coming-of-age storyof Persephone Matepas, a mortal who's destined through ancestrallineage to transform into a winged angel of death. Her whole familyis being stalked by an extremist Greek Orthodox sect, whose darkmission is to kill nascent death angels and thus-by their twisted reasoningsave humanity by banishing mortality altogether.A modern fantasy which mixes orthodoxy with the supernaturalthe formal with the irreverent, pure love with obsessive lustcompliance with rebellion, and questions whether one's fate is trulyinescapable. A wild but guided journey, made possible by an authorfamiliar with both sides of the River Styx."The sense of place is palpable, the narrative situations absorbingthe main character, Persephone, compelling and complex.Magical realism at its best."Sara Pritchard, author of HELP WANTED: FEMALE"Oh my. The audacity of genius. Anagnost has done forDeath Angels what Bram Stoker did for vampires. Beautifully writtenterrifying, and knock-down glorious. " -Robert P. Arthur, authorof HYMN TO THE CHESAPEAKE"A magical evocation of a Greek-American childhood.Haunting ... at times, terrifying."David Poyer, author of THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE"Myth, Magic, Medicine, and one extraordinary female hero... a wild not-to-be-missed descent to the underworld."Lenore Hart, author of THE RAVEN'S BRIDE