Hush, Hush Saga Book #4: Finale by Becca Fitzpatrick

After everything Nora has been through, she has one last task to complete before she can fly off into the sunset and be happy with Patch. She has to lead the Black Hand’s Nephilim army to war against the fallen angels. If she doesn’t, she and her mother will die. But, if she does, the archangels won’t be so pleased with her and Patch. What happened to normal seventeen-year-old problems?

At least she isn’t alone. She’s got Patch, she’s got Scott, she’s got the Black Hand’s right man Dante and shockingly she even has Marcie. Yeah, that’s right, Marcie is on Nora’s side, or at least, she’s helping Nora so she can find out who killed her father. Okay. Dante is an interesting character. He’s kind of a hard ass as he helps to train Nora so she can lead the army to war if it comes to that. But something about him just isn’t right. That something is revealed when he forces a mysterious drink down her throat.

It’s devilcraft. The substance that Hank Millar was using to help fuel his Nephilim powers and that Patch and Nora thought died with him. Apparently not. Hank entrusted the devilcraft to Dante and Blakely, and Blakely has been working on weapon prototypes that will destroy the fallen angels. There’s also the drink that basically supercharges the Nephilim’s powers. Dude.

Okay, so honestly, the only reason I didn’t one hundred percent love this book was because of Nora’s decisions and the ending. After a brief tussle with Blakely, he ends up stabbing her with a devilcraft infused knife. The problem with the stabbing is that there was so much devilcraft on that blade that Nora becomes addicted to it. Reading about her trying to overpower the addiction was painful. I actually liked Nora the last book and part of this one, until she became addicted to the devilcraft. She should have known better. As for the ending…well, if you’re into the whole ‘perfect ending’ thing, then you would have liked this ending. But I didn’t. I love when books end perfectly, really, I do, but it ended too neatly and easily. Seriously. Nora’s final plan backfires, all the fallen angels are sent to hell, and Dante is after her head. How can things end well after that? Well, apparently, Dante is the devilcraft prototypes, so with help from Scott, Nora is able to kill him, which in turn kills the fallen angels who pledged allegiance to him to get out of hell. Patch possessed Rixon to get out of hell, and Nora and him go off into the sunset together, because as a final gift from the archangels – Detective Basso, who knew? – Patch can now feel. Wow.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Nora has come a long way from her character in the first book. She’s grown stronger, but she still makes some bad decisions. The ending was great, but it was gift wrapped a little too well.

Bookshelf worthy? After a year of sitting on my shelf, I finally read it. Yay!

Hush, Hush Saga Book #3: Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick

Nora Grey has been through it all in the last few years. Her father was murdered. She had a stalker. She thought she was going insane. She was almost killed a few times. She fell in love for the first time. She found out that her father wasn’t really her father and that there are fallen angels and Nephilim walking around in the real world. So what could possibly happen to top all of that? Well…

It’s been three months since the end of Crescendo and Nora wakes up in the cemetery having no idea how she got there or what day it is. When the groundskeeper finds her, he tells her her worst fear. It’s not April like she thought, but actually September. She’s been missing for three months and she has no memory of the last five. She may not remember anything, but she does get the feeling that something isn’t right with her mom’s new boyfriend – Hank Millar. As she tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to her, she meets old friends and new foes.

So I have to say that I liked this book a whole hell of a lot more than I did the last one. Making Nora forget not only the three months she was being held captive by Hank but also the two months previously that she was with Patch was an evil but fantastic move. I also liked how he was still part of her life, but went by his real name Jev instead of Patch. Was I ever glad when Nora sort of kind of remembered him and what happened between the two of them. The character of Scott, like I predicted, became a major player in this book. Not only does he help jog Nora’s memory of what happened, but he also helps her start to bring down Hank at the risk of his own life, since the Black Hand was still after him. Vee, as usual, was her annoying self, believing that she – and Nora’s mother – knew what was best for Nora. I was sort of able to tolerate her character in the last two books because sometimes her attitude and quips were funny, but in this book. Wow. I didn’t like her at all. She was supposed to be Nora’s best friend and help her connect the dots, not lie to her.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. I’m still kind of confused with the whole oath thing that Hank made Nora swear upon, but I’m sure that it will resolve itself in the next book.

Bookshelf worthy? What font do they use for the title?!

Hush, Hush Saga Book #2: Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

Recently, Becca Fitzpatrick revealed on Twitter that Crescendo was not her favorite book to write out of the Hush, Hush Saga, and I can tell. When this book first came out, I read it in one day and was supremely confused and angered by the events that transpired. How is it that a sequel to a book that I loved could turn in to such…well, crap? Now, that I’ve read it again, I still don’t have an answer, but I kind of understand things better than that first reading.

Nora is used to her life being turned upside down. Her father was murdered almost two years ago, she’s learned that she is descended from a race called Nephilim, and that her lab partner from biology was a fallen angel until he saved her life two months ago. Now, Patch is a guardian angel her guardian angel and she couldn’t be happier. But as the book begins, Nora isn’t on the path to normal just yet. Feeling overwhelmed by her feelings for Patch, she declares her love for him and he doesn’t say it back.

The next morning in summer school she learns from Marcie Miller – her arch nemesis for years – that Patch went to her house right afterwards and stood watching. Nora asks Patch about it, but he doesn’t give her an answer. Feeling hurt and betrayed she breaks up with him causing a rift. Add in a new character named Scott with a dark past of his own, and the fact that Nora is seeing her father around town and you’ve got one interesting sequel.

So, like I said before when I first read this book I thought it was a bunch of crap. Here was another second book of a series that breaks up the main characters for really stupid reasons. True, I get that Nora didn’t want Patch to rebel on the archangels, and that she was still kind of miffed about Patch not telling her why he was hanging with Marcie – although I kind of had a feeling why he was – but still… Nora is very quick to assume the worst of people and that’s kind of one of things that I really hate about her. She knows that Patch is a guardian angel now, and once he explains that the archangels are just looking for a reason to cast him back to hell, shouldn’t she guess that the reason he’s hanging with Marcie is because he’s protecting her now?

Scott was an interesting character to throw into the mix. He seemed like such a jerk at the beginning – kind of like Patch – but at the end when it’s revealed what is really going on with him, I was kind of intrigued to see him come back in the next book. And can we talk about Marcie’s dad actually being Nora’s dad too?! What was Blythe thinking? And holy crap, holy crap! The ending! Just when you think there’s going to be some much-anticipated Patch/Nora make up making out, Mr. Miller shows up and confronts Nora about the death of Jules aka Chauncey. The end. WHAT?!

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. So the ending still kind of confused me. Nora’s dad – Harrison – was told to marry Blythe and claim Nora as his own child even though it was really Mr. Miller’s kid? And Mr. Miller is the Black Hand, but he didn’t kill Harrison, that was actually Patch’s friend Rixon? And Rixon was after Nora because not only does she have the blood of Chauncey in her veins but the blood of Barnabas, who was Rixon’s blood oath host? Ouch. My brain hurts.

Bookshelf worthy? Gray scale cover art is gorgeous. I still want to know what font they use for the title.

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Nora Grey has a normal life. She has a chatty best friend, a mom who worries way too much, and she worries herself about getting into a good college. But everything she knows is about to change when her biology teacher decides to change the seating chart. No longer is she sitting next to her best friend – Vee – she now has to sit next to the mysterious senior transfer who seems to make it his mission to make her blush.

But things are starting to get really weird. On her way home one night, she runs over a person who somehow is able to knock out her window and try to go after her. When she drives to her friend’s house, all the damage is gone. It looks like nothing happens. A few days later, she walks in on someone rummaging through her things, when she calls the police, her room is pristine. She thinks she’s finally going crazy, especially when Patch – the mysterious senior transfer – keeps showing up everywhere she goes.

Hush, Hush was one of those books that I stumbled across at the bookstore a long time ago because of intriguing cover art. Once I picked it up though I couldn’t put it down. The same goes for the second read through I did. The story flows hard and fast, and the character of Patch is as mysterious as Fitzpatrick makes him out to be on the page. Along with Nora, you go through the motions of hating Patch, being embarrassed by Patch, and slowly falling for him. When it’s revealed that he’s a fallen angel sent to kill her, but couldn’t do it because he likes her, I totally lost my shit. As for the school psychiatrist, Mrs. Greene, I totally called it. She was acting a little bit too controlling over Nora seeing Patch to just be a school administrator.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Even through the second read through, I still got a little bit confused over some of the plot points in this book, but I think I got the gist of them to understand what was going on.

Bookshelf worthy? I got my copy for $4.99 at Borders before it closed. One of the best deals for a hardcover.

A Beautiful Dark Series Book #2: A Fractured Light by Jocelyn Davies

The one thing that you take away from this 337-paged book – even at the end of the first book – is that everything has changed. Seriously, you would have thought that would have been apparent in the last book, when Skye found out that she was the offspring of two warring faction angels, but no. This time everything has changed.

Skye has finally figured out that the Order – the supposed good guys – aren’t as good as they claim to be. Not since Devin, a member of the Order, was ordered to kill her. She somehow miraculously survived and now has to figure out how to deal with everything she knows now.

As much as I liked this book – seriously it was better than the first one – A Fractured Light still drove me crazy. It wasn’t until about halfway through the book that I started to wonder what exactly was the point? There weren’t any big plot heavy moments. No big battles between the Order and the Rebels, although the Guardians transferring into Skye’s school was sort of interesting. Asher and Skye’s relationship was cute, as was Cassie and Dan’s. I was really pissed off with Ian when he laid into Skye about liking Devin and Asher and not him. Where did he get off? She doesn’t like you like that, Ian, and that’s her decision. Yeah, she treated you like crap, but to expecting her to like you after all these years? Gah. It just wasn’t cool.

Except for finding out that Aunt Joe has known the whole time about Skye and her parents, and the last twenty pages where the finale gets set up big time, this book didn’t really advance the plot too much. I was sort of disappointed with that.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Better than the first book, but was mostly filler.

Bookshelf worthy? Support your local library!

A Beautiful Dark by Jocelyn Davies

I’ve yet to meet an angel series that led me astray. I loved the Unearthly trilogy by Cynthia Hand and I also loved the Hush, Hush Quartet (or at least the first three books, I haven’t gotten around to reading the fourth one yet) by Becca Fitzpatrick. However, when I started reading A Beautiful Dark I thought that I finally met my match.

Skye is celebrating her seventeenth birthday when the story begins. She lives in a city outside Denver, Colorado and has three friends – Dan, Cassie and Ian. She hates celebrating her birthday because her parents died in a car crash on her sixth. But her friends never listen to her and throw her surprise parties anyway. While Skye is getting some air she meets Asher, the definition of a bad boy, and then later his cousin Devin who is everything light. Weird things start to happen after she meets these two; boilers explode, her eyes flash silver, she causes an avalanche, etc. That’s when she starts to wonder if everything is what it seems to be.

Apparently, not. It turns out her mother and father were both angels. The only difference was her mother was a Gifted angel – supposedly one of the good guys – and her father was a Rebel – supposedly one of the bad guys – they met and fell in love. Their punishment when it was found out was they were cast out from the angels and made to live with the mortals as mortals. Until Skye was born…

So about until the avalanche scene I did not like this book too much. Another book with a love triangle and a best guy friend who is crushing on the girl. Gag me. But I kept plowing through and was eventually rewarded with the major reveal that Skye was an angel, and that Devin and Asher were also angels. The downside of the big reveal was I also got this twisted back story of the Gifted versus the Rebels. I’ll be honest, I was seriously confused for the rest of the book.

This book’s only saving grace was the major cliffhanger at the end.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Mediocre characters – seriously the narrator was a trip – and a muddled storyline. However, what an ending. Curious to see what happens next.

Bookshelf worthy? Support your local library!