It is the sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty and continues the story of Gemma Doyle, a girl in the late 19th century with the power of second sight.

Rebel Angels was released in paperback in January 2007, and extras included a preview scene for the third book in the trilogy, The Sweet Far Thing, and an interview with author Libba Bray.

He is told that by destroying the Runes, Gemma released the magic, making it available to all the creatures in the realms, including the evil Circe and her allies in the Winterlands.

Kartik is charged with helping Gemma find the Temple in the realms, where the magic can be bound by the Rakshana, and when that is completed he is to kill her.

Gemma runs into Miss Hester Asa Moore, her former art teacher who mentored her at Spence, and who has now taken a flat in London.

At Bethlem Royal Hospital (i.e. "Bedlam"), where Tom works, one of his patients is a girl named Nell Hawkins, who murmurs of the Temple.

She also discovers that Nell was a student at a finishing school that Miss McCleethy had taught at before coming to Spence, as well as three other girls whose terrible fate Gemma repeatedly envisions.