Dark Angel is a young adult Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy novel by L. J. Smith. It's the fourth book in the Night World series and was published in December 1996. It was later reissued in the omnibus Night World 2, along with The Chosen and Soulmate.
Gillian Lennox wants nothing more than to be part of the popular crowd at school and to get the attention of David Blackburn, the popular boy she's had a crush on for years. Unfortunately, her dream seems impossible to achieve when she's treated like she's invisible both at school and at home. Then everything changes one dark, snowy evening, when Gillian has a near-death experience and meets Angel, a mysterious entity only she can see who claims to be her guardian angel. He vows to help her get everything she's ever wanted and more.
Gillian is initially thrilled to finally have someone who understands her completely and helps her transform from a shy outcast to one of the coolest, most desirable girls in school. Not all the students are impressed by Gillian's meteoric rise to popularity, but Gillian soon realizes she has bigger problems than high school grudges. Angel claims to have to her best interests at heart, but Gillian becomes increasingly unsettled by some of the things he asks of her. She finds herself starting to question who Angel really is and what he truly wants from her. But is it already too late to turn back from the dark path he's set her down?
Not to be confused with the TV series or the band.
Tropes found here include:
- Bittersweet Ending: With Gillian's encouragement, Angel is convinced to reveal where Paula Belizer's body is buried. David and Gillian find her body and tell the police, allowing her to be properly laid to rest. Paula's father says he forgives whoever did this to Paula and Gillian forgives Angel too; this finally allows him to move on to the afterlife as David and Gillian look on. Gillian no longer pursues popularity for the sake of it and is more confident and comfortable with herself. Gillian's father returns to town and it's hinted that he and Gillian's mother may reconcile, or they'll at least have a more amiable separation. Although not explicitly stated, it's also implied Gillian will explain to her mother that they're both witches and Gwen isn't actually crazy, which will probably help Gwen get sober and have a better relationship with her family.
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- At the start of the story, Gillian goes into the woods after hearing a child crying and she thinks of Paula Belizer, a little girl who went missing in the woods a year ago. The ending reveals that the reason Angel cannot move onto the afterlife is his guilt over accidentally killing Paula and never being able to tell anyone where she was buried.
- Early on, Gillian casually brings up her great-grandmother Elspeth a few times, saying she lives in England with her pet dog and once bought her a black camisole for Christmas she'd never worn up to this point. Elspeth is revealed to be a lot more important to the plot at the halfway point where it's explained she is actually Grandma Harman's long-lost younger sister and that she and her descendants, including Gillian herself, are lost witches. Angel is also revealed to be related to Elspeth through her twin brother Emmeth, who was also a lost witch.
- Christmas Episode: The novel is primarily set around Christmastime; Gillian feels especially lonely as she doesn't really have anyone to spend Christmas with (her father has moved out, her best friend is preoccupied with her new boyfriend and there's no guarantee her mother will be sober), later gets invited to Christmas parties and goes to buy a Christmas tree with David at one point. The time of year fits with the book's themes of forgiveness, hope and new beginnings. It was also originally published in December.
- Continuity Nod:
- When Ash rescues Gillian from some vampires who wanted to kill her, Ash says that technically he should kill her for knowing about the Night World and that once he probably would've done so. When Gillian asks why he saved her instead, Ash solemnly states "I met a girl last summer" without elaborating further, though it's referring to the events of Daughters of Darkness and his relationship with Mary-Lynette.
- Melusine tells Gillian that are some Night People and humans who know of the Night World who have banded together to reform Circle Daybreak and Angel also reveals some of them approached him to reveal he was a witch and tried to recruit him, referencing what Aradia told Thea and Eric at the end of Spellbinder.
- Curse: Under Angel's guidance, Gillian puts two rather effective curses on Tanya and Kim after finding out she's a witch, to stop their intended revenge plot against her and David – she gives Kim strep throat to prevent her from talking and gives Tanya what she thinks is bad rash on her arm to stop her from writing or typing. The curses are a little too effective in fact and she's horrified when she realizes how much damage she did (if left untreated, strep throat can cause serious complications, and given the cause is supernatural it's unclear if Kim would respond to medication, while it's revealed Angel tricked Gillian into giving Tanya flesh-eating bacteria that lands her in hospital.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The relationship between Gillian and Angel is reminiscent of an abusive relationship; it doesn't start out obviously sinister, but Gillian is extremely emotionally vulnerable and desperate for affection, with Angel quickly winning her trust and taking control of her life for the purposes of improving it. At first he asks her to do innocent things like cutting her hair and changing her clothes, but it slowly escalates to him getting her to manipulate and harm other people, and cut herself off from certain people. Angel only approves of Gillian hanging out with a select group of companions and tries to isolate her from people who he thinks could come between them (under the guise of them being 'bad' for Gillian). He controls her appearance, her social life, even what she says. If Gillian questions any of his decisions, he insists he knows best and makes her doubt her own judgement.
- Don't Go in the Woods: While walking home from school beside the woods, Gillian hears a child crying from somewhere in the trees. It's freezing and getting dark, so against her better judgment Gillian heads into the woods to find what she assumes is a lost kid. While searching near the creek, Gillian ends up falling in and almost drowns, then dies of hypothermia (she gets better). It's later revealed Angel was the one crying like a child to lure Gillian into the woods. Gillian also recalls that a local child named Paula went missing in the woods a year ago and it turns out her body is buried in the woods, after Angel accidentally killed her while performing a dangerous spell (he'd in fact gone out to the woods to do the spell specifically because he thought it would be safer).
- Exact Eavesdropping: Twice invoked by Angel.
- The first time, Angel has Gillian confront Tanya about her spreading rumors about her and her mother, and cheating on David, while David is in earshot, which Gillian didn't realize. Consequently, David overhears Tanya basically admitting to all of it and threatening Gillian, resulting in David and Tanya getting into a huge argument and breaking up.
- The second time, while Gillian is attending a house party, Angel instructs her to hide in the closet of an upstairs bedroom and just listen. Soon after, Tanya and Kim enter to have a supposedly private conversation, and Gillian overhears them plotting to get revenge on her and David, as Angel intended.
- Filler: Although it features an appearance from Ash Redfern (who had previously had prominent roles in Secret Vampire and Daughters of Darkness), it's the one book in the Night World series that can be skipped without doing much damage to one's understanding of the over-arching story, as it's largely detached from wider Night World society and is even more self-contained than the other stories, to the point it could almost be read as a standalone novel (the other books tend to contain more references and crossovers to the other installments). It does better explain the lost Harman babies backstory and subplot, though, which becomes more significant later in the series.
- Foreshadowing:
- There are some early hints that Gillian is a lost witch. Things tend to get inexplicably broken, like a bathroom mirror and a cafeteria window, whenever Gillian is feeling distressed or angry. Her mother sees and hears strange things, which is initially chalked up to her excessive drinking, and Gillian herself is more sensitive to the supernatural than most people.
- There are a few hints that Angel is, or at least was, a popular teenage boy in the same age group as Gillian, rather than some ancient, otherworldly being: he tends to use the same lingo and make pop culture references that Gen X teens would be familiar with, and understands very well how to navigate and take advantage of the high school social scene. When Gillian tells Melusine about Angel, she also states he doesn't sound like any demonic or angelic being she's ever heard of.
- For Want Of A Nail: The events of the novel are kicked off by Gillian being forced to walk home in the snow after school, because her friend Amy was supposed to give her a lift in her car, but forgot and went to hang out with her new boyfriend Eugene.
- Love Dodecahedron: Gillian is in love with David, who already has a girlfriend named Tanya; although David does appear to be attracted to Gillian, he insists on remaining loyal to Tanya. Angel and Gillian also have a very close relationship, with Gillian finding that he understands her better than anyone and Angel appearing jealous of David; he eventually starts telling Gillian he thinks they're destined to be together. Gillian cares deeply for Angel, but does want to be with David romantically too. David dumps Tanya for Gillian after finding out Tanya had cheated on him and is generally a nasty person, Angel eventually tries to kill David to possess his body and be with Gillian, which puts an end to any romantic feelings from her end (though they eventually reconcile after Angel makes amends) and Gillian learns that she and David are actually soulmates.
- Milholland Relationship Moment: After having a major Jerkass Realization over the morally questionable things she's done to gain popularity and nearly getting David killed, Gillian confesses everything to him and apologizes, fully believing he'll dump her in disgust and/or think she's insane. To her shock, David takes what she says at face value, including the supernatural stuff; he reveals he had his own brush with the supernatural after briefly dying during a childhood operation. He also forgives Gillian, knowing that she's truly remorseful and saying he himself has done things he's not proud of. Finally, he reveals that he has genuinely fallen in love with Gillian for who she really is beneath the cool girl image and glamorous clothes, and believes that she's better than she thinks she is.
- Pass Fail: Played with, in that Gillian technically is a member of the group she's trying to fit in with - a witch - yet still gets on the receiving end of this. Because Gillian is a lost witch, she was born with powers but knows nothing about witch culture. As such, she struggles to blend in with Night People without Angel's help; she's able to win over Melusine and get the supplies she needs for spellcasting by using witch greetings and drawing a dahlia – one of the symbols of the witches – although Melusine is clearly suspicious of her. Things get much more serious when Angel tries to get Gillian to enter a Black Iris club; she sticks out like a sore thumb and is immediately assumed to be a human who happened to find out about the Night World, resulting in her being preyed upon by a group of vampires; after all, humans who find out about the Night World are considered fair game. Gillian starts to panic and can't follow Angel's instructions, and she gets lucky that Ash Redfern intervenes (he doesn't believe she's a witch either, but covertly helps her escape).
- Popular Is Evil: Zig-zagged. Gillian comes to realize a lot of the popular kids at her school are shallow, backstabbing and self-absorbed jerks who are only even nice to each other when it suits them. Angel encourages Gillian to be ruthless when trying get In with the In Crowd. However, Gillian also discovers a few of the popular kids aren't bad people and have Hidden Depths. When Gillian stops pursuing popularity, she says she would still enjoy hanging out with a few of them and comes to regard one girl as a genuine friend, but isn't that bothered about the rest. Gillian is surprised that despite her popularity, no one truly likes Tanya much; conversely, David is also popular and is genuinely liked by almost everyone for his kindness and approachability.
- The Reveal:
- About halfway through the novel, Angel reveals to Gillian that she's a lost witch on her mother's side, and not just any lost witch either; she's a member of the Harman family and directly descended from Hellewise Hearth-Woman and Hecate Witch-Queen.
- Angel is revealed to be not an angel or a demon or anything like that; he's the ghost of a teenage boy named Gary Fargeon, who found out he was a lost witch shortly before dying in tragic circumstances and is unable to move on.
- Angel was responsible for the disappearance of young Paula Belizer, although her death was a complete accident.
- Shout-Out: At one point, Angel humorously almost tricks Gillian into saying "These aren't the droids you're looking for".
- Snow Means Death: Almost literally; the story is set in Pennsylvania in winter, so it's frequently snowing. While trudging home in the snow at the beginning of the book, Gillian ends up falling into an icy creek and although she's able to drag herself out before she drowns, the freezing temperatures cause her to die from hypothermia; luckily she gets to come back, which is how she meets Angel, although she's still shaken up and ill afterwards.
- Voodoo Doll: Gillian uses two wax dolls to curse Tanya and Kim. With Melusine's help, she later uses the dolls to remove the curses as well (having failed to lift them herself due to her lack of experience).
