Reviewed by Keith Mbuya for Readers' Favorite

In the autumn of 2003, Sean Quell began his sophomore year at Magnolia Academy, an elite all-boys Catholic school in Poughkeepsie, New York. But then, if only he had the slightest idea about what awaited him, he would never have set foot in its grounds in the first place. Sean meets Jeremiah Kateb, a quick-witted Algerian boy, and quickly falls head over heels for the drop-dead gorgeous boy. Soon he learns that his greatest fears are coming true. It seems that Jeremiah was having an affair with their history teacher Mr. Van Orton, something Sean had suspected for a while. Thanks to Van Orton, Jeremiah turned into a different person, even abandoning his strong conviction for Communism, which Sean had devotedly adopted. But that’s just the tip of it. Apart from learning about an annual clandestine ceremony dubbed Rais Frolic and hosted by the school’s headmaster, he discovers that he and Jeremiah had been chosen to attend it. Sean also discovers unsettling truths about the ceremony and the headmaster. Not only has a boy died every twenty years since its inception in 1943, but the school’s headmaster might be a devil worshipper, if not the Devil incarnate. This is a year of death for Rais Frolic, but what will happen to Sean, Jeremiah, and the other students? Find out in Nino Hoti’s Not Angels But Angels.

This gripping page-turner will have you hooked from cover to cover. If you are looking for a horror novel anchored in an unraveling back story, Nino Hoti’s Not Angels But Angels is just what you should be looking for. This is not your regular ghost-themed horror novel with fabricated scary scenes. It is nothing like you’ve read before. Hoti is undisputedly a tremendously gifted author and is now my favorite author in the horror genre. Weaving an ingenious plot that features an enigmatic, dynamic, and fascinating cast, Hoti harnessed a subtle and macabre tone to the narration. This alongside the spell-binding plot twists and intriguing cliffhangers had me on the edge of my seat, at the mercy of Hoti’s words. Running a thin line between reality and imagination, Hoti unfolds the plot through sharp intellectual conversations and colorful, evocative depictions. I was hurled into a world of Satanic occult, human sacrifices, sex, teenage and family drama, political and sociopolitical ideologies and propaganda, LGBTQ+ relationships, and so much more, all in the setting of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century America, yet richly colored with a contemporary backdrop. This is the type of story that leaves you questioning your beliefs, and perhaps your sanity. I loved this book.