The Angel of the title is Angelica Deverell, the daughter of a grocer from the not terribly nice town of Norley, who decides to write novels to bring her life up to the level she wishes to become accustomed to. The books she writes are hideous in the opinion of pretty much every other character in the book but these unresearched fantasies of lords and ladies go down well with the general public. This story is about the rise, and eventual fall, of Angel.

The beginning of the book where Angel is dreaming, lying and writing was great - it grabbed me from the very beginning. The supporting cast, like Angel’s mother and Aunt Lottie, are fabulous creations, realistic foils to Angel’s fantasies. The problem for me was that once Angel became successful, even though you knew this couldn’t last, and started playing out her fantasies in the real world, it all became a lot less absorbing to read. The supporting characters later in the book are no match for those at the start, and it all became a bit too comic and silly for me.

I’ll be looking out for more of Taylor’s books, I enjoyed this one, but just felt it lost it’s way a bit as it went on.