Maitland is a feminist Christian theologian who writes good novels about women at crisis point. A good storyteller, Maitland keeps her prose light despite being an intellectual heavy-weight.

Ellie, "haloed in the light from the furnace" (there are lots of angels in this book), is a successful glassmaker losing sight of her inner self. Her husband keeps his distance, her daughter has fled to South America; Ellie, too busy to notice, prefers the company of her male, gay friends. Many of them are in the throes of AIDS, and Ellie know how to organise a "good" death. Maitland knows her faghags, and Ellie lives up to all the stereotypes: against an acutely observed London backdrop, Ellie swaps wry, sophisticated repartee with her self-absorbed but redemptively camp best friend, Hugo. It seems that the high ideals and liberal principles that Ellie upholds are getting in the way of her experiencing any real emotion, until, that is, she acquires a trouble-making guardian angel. Maitland, so persuasive when it comes to social realism, loses the way a little when getting deeper into the psychology of her characters, but Guardian Angel's symbolic intent is sufficiently clear (as the crystal Ellie works with) to guide Ellie to her moment of revelation. --Lilian Pizzichini