Review: Stone Angel by Charles Buday

A raw and emotionally charged tale of loyalty, love, and the lives we hide behind the scenes, Stone Angel by Charles Buday is a conspiracy-fueled and captivating thriller.

Paige, a fresh-faced darling of Hollywood, starts an unwitting culture war with America’s conservative Christians, seemingly putting her in the crosshairs of the radical right. Her sister, Mitzi – photographer, publicist, advisor, and guard dog – is fiercely loyal and reliably fearless, while Paige’s absentee husband, Russell, seems more concerned with his career as a screenwriter than the frightening threat to his wife and daughter. Even so, he enlists the help of “Oscar,” an elite protection service that approaches its task with deadly seriousness, likely due to the nefarious origin story of this bodyguard service to the stars.

Cal, a chiseled veteran exercising and exorcising his demons from a tragic loss, is assigned as Paige’s new protection specialist. Like any immovable object and unstoppable force, the two clash immediately, but their combative dance of power and control develops into a grudging respect, then a friendship, and then something more, their lives mingling in a nebulous cloud of connection.

When her husband begins pressuring Paige to sign onto a new movie, and she reluctantly agrees, Cal can sense that something isn’t right, but the web of professional and personal boundaries is sticky. At the end of the day, Cal’s job is to protect his client, even from those who are closest to her. As secrets are revealed and relationships are shattered, Cal and Paige will both have to decide whether their paths are temporarily crossing, or permanently connected.

Though the novel is set a decade ago, there are timeless themes that are perennially relevant – the shadowy side of Hollywood, men holding unfair power over women, long-term trauma responses, and the lure of forbidden romance. Giving an inside peek into the manipulative machinations behind the silver screen, this is a gritty take on a glamorous industry, taking a chisel rather than a cudgel to show business, and always keeping its sense of realism. The characters are deeply developed and believable, flawed without being stereotypical, and relatable in their emotional struggles. Buday also devotes a good amount of attention to the supporting cast, making Russell, Mitzi, Lilah, Sarah, and even tertiary characters into three-dimensional players.

Some of the narration is overly leading, pushing readers slightly ahead of the characters in terms of plot revelation, which can undercut the suspense, but there are still plenty of surprising twists that readers won’t see coming. In terms of technical detail, there are some sloppy grammatical and punctuation errors, as well as inconsistent dialogue formatting and a few tense slips. There are also certain sections of dialogue that feel unnecessary or out of place, such as characters explaining things others already know, or the same plot points being explained multiple times, but these are minor storytelling stumbles in what is overall a thrilling read.

Peppered with erotic tension and vulnerability that comes across powerfully on the page, this is a finely tuned novel with a little something for everyone – action, romance, suspense, and incisive social critique about the perilous desire for fame.