In a small French village near the border with Belgium, Marie Claire, a young Jewish girl, lives with her grandmother who cultivates hybrid irises and roses. It is World War II and a bomb shatters the world Marie Clare knows. Rescued by a pair of Catholic nuns she is taken across the border to their convent in Tournai, Belgium for safekeeping. This is where the nuns have been hiding Jews who await transport to Switzerland. But the Germans are apparently on to their role in the resistance and have planned a raid on the convent. And then the miracles begin to happen.

This haunting debut novel is full of magical realism and religious mysticism. Told in a series of vignettes with limited connective narrative, the reader feels as if s/he is watching the story unfold as if refracted through a series of prisms. Images are so close and vivid, and yet fuzzy and out of reach, lending to the mystical atmosphere. Excepting the innocent 7-year-old Marie Claire, all the characters are full of regrets and struggling to balance devotion with obligation, love with war, and faith with loss of hope.

I enjoyed this short (164 pg) novel, and I am a fan of magical realism, but I'm left feeling a little dissatisfied. I think Kelby might have expanded some of the scenes and worked harder to provide some connective narrative to support the story arc. I liked it, but I’m struggling with whether to recommend it, or to whom. Readers with a high tolerance for ambiguity might enjoy it.
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"In the Company of Angels" is set in a small town in France during WWII. The highly religious town is destroyed through bombings and occupancy by the Germans. The history of seeing divinity and/or religious visions were regular occurrences, but it did not save this town or it's people. The central characters of Anne, whose mother was thought insane by her insistence that her daughter was to be taken by angels, the Mother superior and a young Jewish child, Marie Claire, rescued from the rubble. What becomes of them is meant to be soul stirring...
My problem was the potential "twist" at the end of the very small book - it expected a "leap of faith" from the reader, I am good with that, but I felt that the book changed directions too abruptly, no flow, no real background... I have read books like this before, where at the end I am in awe and the implications and ramifications of the earlier chapters takes on completely different meanings... this book just left me confused for a while and then disappointed overall feeling that I had been cheated by a glossed over end... the last 1/4 of the book could and should have been written better. A rarity in my book reading habits - I will not keep this one in my collection. ( )

Finished reading this book this afternoon. While I enjoy fantasy, I don't believe stories about the Holocaust should be romanticized or made to appear overly surreal. Is the author trying to say the Holocaust wasn't actually real?? Also a bit confusing to know who was really alive and who was dead. ( )

Set in Belgium during WW2 Nazi occupation. Child hiding alone in cellar of shattered house is found by two nuns. Is she an angel? Story is beautifully written but not particularly interesting. I didn't care about any of the characters, but the writing kept me reading

I read this book in a day, it is original and captivating. A different and inspiring approach to war-time writing. ( )