R. Leo Olson

Sojourning with Angels: the Rise of Zazriel R. Leo Olson

Sojourning With Angels: Olson's debut novel explores angelology, teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church and ancient speculative histories. It has a brave new voice on the fringe of spiritual fantasy, in the spirit of Dante's Divine Comedy, where a personal apocalypse plunges a wife's love for her husband to fight for his soul if love is going to win in the end.
In the peaceful city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, unseen warfare rages for the final resting place of a man's soul. Zazriel, a forgotten watcher angel, is sent as an apprentice to Milo Christopoulos's family. Milo, a scandalous real estate agent, has lost his faith, renounced his Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition and for the past decade, demonic influences have infested his life, when his soul is suddenly required of him. While Milo lays in a coma, his wife, Natalie sees his soul suffering in the demonic Aerial Toll Houses, an intermediate state where the demons wage their last attack. Too late to repent, Milo is stranded between heaven and hell for forty days hoping against all hope that love will win. Father Lazarus, a struggling whiskey priest who can see dead souls, decides to help Natalie discern a supernatural understanding of reality--a hidden reality only alluded to in the Bible and whispered about in other sacred writings. Together with three guardian angels, they battle hideous demons, including an ancient succubus, with violent acts of love in hopes of rescuing Milo before it's too late.