Best-selling novelist Anne Rice’s fictional stories have followed her faith journey and reversion to the Catholic faith of her youth. Best known for her vampire novels, after returning to Catholicism, Rice penned a novel about the young Jesus Christ. Now she’s tackling angels.

Next week, her novel Angel Time, hits the stands.

“In my earlier books, I never had the courage to put someone on the side of the angels,” Rice said.

“I’ve always been fascinated with angels and by the passages in the Bible pertaining to angels,” said Rice. “Angels are evidence of God’s love for us.”

In the book, she writes about the angelic character Malchiac.

“I’m dealing with the Christian and Jewish traditions,” said Rice. “I was dealing with constraints that I found exciting. I wanted to work with those constraints.  I wanted to see how true I could be to the traditions about angels, but bring them to life in a whole different way.”

“I’ve always been interested in these powerful messengers from heaven who can intervene in our lives on behalf of the Almighty, and I’ve always been fascinated by peoples’ stories of their experiences with angels,” Rice added. “I try to give my version of what they would be like interacting with us on earth.”

For a more realistic take on angels and what we know about them, check out Opus Sanctorum Angelorum, a religious order devoted to the Work of the Holy Angels.  They’ve done more thinking, praying, writing, preaching and cooperating with the angels than nearly any order I know. Their Catechesis on the Angels is a wonderful introduction to what Catholics truly know and believe about the angels, as revealed primarily through sacred Scripture.