Angel (Angel Trilogy, #1)

by L. A. Weatherly

[Leah]

Angel by LA Weatherly is one of those books that, after starting it, you just can't stop. It is literally a page turner and it took me all of 5 hours to complete the 500+ pages! I was hooked completely from the off, despite the fact I had no idea what to expect from the book. I assumed it would be a regular girl-meets-boy scenario but with a few angels included but I was completely and utterly wrong. Yes, girl does meet boy but it's not as you would expect as Alex actually goes to kill Willow.

You see, Alex is an Angel Killer (AK) for short, and has spent his life dedicated to hunting down and killing angels, as the angels in LA Weatherley's story are foul creatures who feed off humans. There's nothing redeeming about them at all. So when he gets the text message about an angel in upstate New York, he heads off with the intention to kill. But Willow isn't like any other angel, she's psychic yes, but she doesn't feed off humans leaving Alex perplexed as to what exactly Willow is. Alex can't think of that for long, as he and Willow find themselves running for their lives from the bad angels.

That's the plot in a nutshell but it's actually so much more than that. It's hugely suspenseful for starters, as we know Alex and Willow are being hunted down so there's always the constant fear that they will be caught. The suspense keeps the book shooting along at quite a pace but what also makes the book is the budding relationship between Alex and Willow. At the beginning they hate each other - Alex doesn't like angels and perceives Willow to be one and Willow does't like Alex because Alex doesn't like her - but as they spend more time on the road together, they start to thaw with each other. There's no immediate love here, no, it builds as the book builds and I liked the realism to it.

I thought Alex and Willow as characters were fantastic. You have the beautiful Willow, who is an outcast at school due to her questionable fashion sense, the fact she loves tinkering with cars and, most of all, the fact she's psychic, and I loved her immediately. She's my kinda girl and is much stronger than most teenagers depicted in young adult novels. And what can I say about Alex? He's the kinda boy every girl wants to find. He's strong, brave but has a touch of vulnerability that makes him real. As Alex and Willow spend most of the book on a road trip across America, evading the angels baying for Willow's life, they're basically the only characters in the book, but that works perfectly because they're both so engaging and absorbing.

LA Weatherly has written a stonking good debut with Angel, with a great mix of danger, suspense and romance all bundled up in its 500 pages. The writing style is a mixture of first-person narrative and third-person so not only did we get to feel and hear Willow's thoughts but we also got to see the story as a whole, with the third-person narrative. It was a very clever way to write the book and I found it just as engaging as the plot. Not once did I get bored with the book or with Willow and Alex and I can't wait to see where book two, Angel Fire, takes them when it's released in 2011 along with the third and final book Angel Fever also out in 2011. All paranormal fans will love this book and I hugely recommend it!