Brief backstory about the book: I found it as a softcover in a truck stop gas station while traveling between the Midwest and East Coast sometime between 2000 and 2002. I found it in a spinning softcover display among other cheap softcovers, mostly romance novels. The cover had to have been visually stunning enough to catch my attention, but considering the competition it didn't need to be too stunning, and as such I don't remember what the cover looked like, but may recognize it if I see it again. It seemed new at the time, not a reprinting, and was not by an author or publishing house I recognized.

I read it multiple times and enjoyed it greatly during my trip, but sometime near the end of the trip misplaced it. I revisited the same truck stop on my way back and was unable to locate another copy.

It may have been directed toward the young adult group, since I don't remember anything explicit - language, sexuality, or violence - about it. But my memories are vague now and I might be wrong.

The story started with an explicit statement of the time frame, which (according to my poor grasp of history) should have been just after the American Revolution. Sometime around that time, angels had come to earth and made themselves known. The story followed a young boy apprenticed to one angel as if it were a trade he could learn. He wasn't excited about it at first and gave the impression that most of the angels were arrogant and unapproachable, but found his master was different. Together they were seeking some magical book that had answers to the questions the angel had, the nature of the questions I don't remember. Their travels were opposed by other angels who didn't want them to find the book, because the questions he was asking would change things somehow in a way most angels didn't like.

I can explicitly remember a scene where the two are escaping on a boat and are being chased by a few angels. At least one of the chasing angels had some strange powers, and was able to turn into a large group of insects, like ants or wasps, but the protagonists were able to get away.

Near the end the two had gotten to some large magical angel city and recovered the book, which gave the boy some magical powers like the angels. I explicitly remember his powers being described as blue flames, and the book may have given off blue flame as well. The book answered the questions the angel was asking and revealed they weren't angels at all, but elves who had to escape from their magical realm due to some evil destruction.

The book came to a proper closure with the good guys beating the bad guy and getting their questions answered, but it seemed like it would have been an opening for a series, with the boy getting new untapped powers and the angel/elf knowing the truth and having the will to try to inform others.