Monster Island (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - Hardcover

It's always good to see Angel and Buffy back together on screen or in print and in Monster Island they find themselves facing ghosts from Angel's past and a mysterious killer who is slaying human-demon hybrids. Doyle was part of Angel's original team when he first set up camp in Los Angeles, but Doyle gave his life to save others and left Cordelia the power to see the future in visions. Now Doyle's father has turned up and he is none too pleased to discover that his son is dead. In Sunnydale, Buffy is tracking the party responsible for a spate of murders of half-human, half-demon breeds and it's a trail that leads right to her ex-lover's door in LA. Now Buffy and Angel find themselves teamed up to stop a full-scale massacre being played out on a vengeful scale.

Golden and Sniegoski have already plenty of experience penning Buffy and Angel's book-based adventures and their collaboration is a top-notch effort of slam bang action and great, snappy dialogue that perfectly captures the mood and zest of the TV shows. The plot is rather thin, however, and seems quite stretched at times with scenes and threads that simply pad out the story rather than add to it or push the narrative along. Fans however will be totally thrilled to see their favourite doomed lovers fighting together again, and the continuation of the long-defunct Doyle story line (the character seems to have been forgotten about in the TV show) is a nice addition for die-hard fans. It's a little too long but it moves along faster than a flying stake and has more bite than most of the Buffy and Angel team-up novels that have gone before. --Jon Snow

Christopher Golden is the award-winning, L.A. Times best-selling author of such novels as The Ferryman, Strangewood, The Gathering Dark, Of Saints and Shadows, Prowlers, and the Body of Evidence series of teen thrillers.

Golden has also written or cowritten a great many books and comic books related to the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. His other comic-book work includes stories featuring such characters as Batman, Wolverine, Spider-Man, The Crow, and Hellboy, among many others. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. There are more than six million copies of his books in print. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.