Celestial Blues Trilogy

## Genre Information

Urban Fantasy
Noir

Angels and Demons

 (Series Content Ratings Click on Explicit Ratings for details.)

## About the Series

* **Genres:** Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Noir / Angels and Demons
* **Theme:** PI turned angel
* **Narrative style**: First Person narrative told by Griffin Shaw, protagonist.

## Series Description

This is an inventive mythology, with its grumpy angels and hard-luck hero who is forced to deal with his mortality sixty years after he thought that he was through with it for good. CELESTIAL BLUES tries hard to be classic noir fiction.

Griffin Shaw used to be a PI, but that was back when gumshoes hoofed the streets . . . and he was still alive. Fifty years later, he’s a celestial Centurion, assisting the recently, and violently, dead. Yet just because he’s an angel doesn’t mean he’s a saint. One small mistake has altered fate, and now he’s been dumped back onto to the mortal mudflat to collect another soul—Katherine “Kit” Craig, a journalist whose latest investigation is about to get her clipped. Bucking heavenly orders, Grif refuses to let this sable-haired siren with hairpin curves come to harm. Besides, protecting her offers a chance to find the truth about his own mysterious death — and wreak some vengeance for the murder of his beloved wife, Evie. Joining forces, Kit and Grif’s search for answers leads beyond the blinding lights of the Strip into the dark heart of an evil conspiracy. But a ruthless killer determined to destroy them isn’t Griffin’s biggest threat. His growing attraction to Kit could cost them both their lives, as well as the answer to the greatest mystery of his long afterlife …

## Books in Series

1. The Taken (Celestial Blues Book 1) (2012)
2. The Lost (Celestial Blues Book 2) (2013)
3. The Given (Celestial Blues Book 3) (2014)

## World Building

### Fantasy Elements

Angels, Celestial Centurions, souls, supe drug.

### World

The supernaturals in this world are angels, but they share many of the same emotions and frustrations as human beings. According to this mythology, when a person dies, he or she goes through an incubation period during which all memories of earthly life are wiped away. After the memory wipe, the now-angel goes on to the Everlast (i.e., heaven, paradise, kingdom come, cloud 9—take your pick).

Problematically, the incubation doesn't always work, and angels who maintain their memories are pressed into service as celestial Centurions—angels who assist the recently deceased at the beginning of their journey into the Everlast. The Centurions are "the losers. The few murdered souls that incubation couldn't cure. Still tethered to the Surface by memory and regret, they were pressed into assisting others to cross into the Everlast. The idea was that helping others would relieve their mental anguish. Then they, too, would be able to enter Paradise proper." (p. 48) People who die young and/or violently have the most trouble getting into Everlast because they find it so difficult to give up their emotional ties to their mortal lives.

### Protagonist

Griffin Shaw
The series hero is Griffin (Grif) Shaw, who was a private investigator (PI) back in the 1950s until he was murdered along with his beautiful wife, Evie. Grif's memories of Evie are still very clear and extremely painful, and no amount of incubation has been able to wipe them away. As a result, Griffin has been a Centurion for the past 60 years, and not a very successful one. Grif crudely describes his Centurion duties as "Secure the Take. Clean 'em up. Bring 'em home." (p 48) (The "Take" is the deceased.)
## Book Cover Blurbs

1. The Taken (2012)
Griffin Shaw used to be a PI, but that was back when gumshoes hoofed the streets . . . and he was still alive. Fifty years later, he’s a celestial Centurion, assisting the recently, and violently, dead. Yet just because he’s an angel doesn’t mean he’s a saint. One small mistake has altered fate, and now he’s been dumped back onto to the mortal mudflat to collect another soul—Katherine “Kit” Craig, a journalist whose latest investigation is about to get her clipped. Bucking heavenly orders, Grif refuses to let this sable-haired siren with hairpin curves come to harm. Besides, protecting her offers a chance to find the truth about his own mysterious death — and wreak some vengeance for the murder of his beloved wife, Evie. Joining forces, Kit and Grif’s search for answers leads beyond the blinding lights of the Strip into the dark heart of an evil conspiracy. But a ruthless killer determined to destroy them isn’t Griffin’s biggest threat. His growing attraction to Kit could cost them both their lives, as well as the answer to the greatest mystery of his long afterlife …
2. The Lost (2013)
Griffin Shaw and his wife were both murdered fifty years ago. Now a minor angel, Grif's been granted permission to solve the mystery of his own death... if he helps the Pure angels guide those souls who might otherwise be Lost. Souls like Jeap Yang, a drug addict in his final moments of life. Grif knows that death is coming, but he cannot intervene. However, Grif's mortal lover, reporter Katherine "Kit" Craig, isn't constrained by angelic protocol. If she can stop a death, she will. But as Kit is about to find out, there are things more traumatic and evil than murder. A strange new drug is literally eating tweakers' flesh from their bones, and Kit's crusade to get it off the streets is set to propel her and Grif into a battle with a vicious drug cartel. They'll have to scramble to stay alive, stay together, and choose their own fate... before it's chosen for them.
3. The Given (2014)
*New York Times bestselling author Vicki Pettersson continues her breakout new supernatural noir mystery series as a fallen angel and a reporter team up to stop a drug cartel*. After learning his wife survived the attack that killed him fifty years earlier, angel/PI Griffin Shaw is determined to find Evelyn Shaw, no matter the cost. Yet his obsession comes at a price. Grif has had to give up his burgeoning love for reporter Katherine "Kit" Craig, the woman who made life worth living again, and dedicate himself to finding one he no longer knows. Yet when Grif is attacked again, it becomes clear that there are forces in both the mortal and heavenly realm who'd rather see him dead than unearth the well-buried secrets of his past. If he's to survive his second go-round on the Surface, Grif will have to convince Kit to reunite with him professionally, and help uncover decades of police corruption, risking both their lives... and testing the limits to what one angel is really willing to give for love.
## References

1. ↑ Fang-tastic
2. ↑ Celestial Blues – Vicki Pettersson
3. ↑ Fang-tastic Fiction: Vicki Pettersson's CELESTIAL BLUES TRILOGY