Review for Angel by L.A. Weatherly

"In a world where angels are beyond redemption, Alex thinks he's found one that might deserve mercy. Alex is a ruthless assassin - of angels. Forget everything you've heard about them before. Angels are not benign celestial creatures, but fierce stalkers whose irresistible force allows them to feed off humans, draining them of their vitality until there is barely anything left. As far as Alex is concerned, the only good angel is a dead angel...until he meets Willow. She may look like a normal teenager but Willow is no ordinary girl. Half-angel, half-human, Willow may hold the key to defeating the evil angels. But as the hunter and the hunted embark on an epic and dangerous journey and Willow learns the dark and terrifying secrets of her past, Alex finds himself drawn to Willow...with devastating consequences." When Angel first landed on my door step a little over a week ago I’m pretty sure my shrieks of joy could be heard from the bottom of my street. To say I was excited is an understatement. I’ve been wanting to read this book ever since I first heard about it which was towards the beginning of the year and ever since then I’ve been counting down the weeks until it’s release date, so boy was I happy to receive this book a whole week before it hit the bookshops! Angels are my very favourite paranormal creature to read about, their my drug of choice and I buy and devour any books on angels I can find. These beings fascinate me and whilst I have read and loved pretty much every single angel book I’ve ever read Angel is by far the best book on these celestial beings on the young adult market. Angel is Usborne’s first book for teens and it solidly places a respected name amongst young adult books. This makes me very excited to see what else Usborne has for us readers in the future. Hold on to your halos fans of the paranormal because this book is going to be huge! A popular theme on the Teen book market at the moment is taking something bad whether that be vampires, werewolves etc; and reinventing it as something good. L.A Weatherly turns the tables with Angel and turns something heavenly into something deadly. This makes Angel a very much needed breath of fresh air in the young adult market and what is going to set it apart from other books like it. On top of the original concept its fast paced providing constant entertainment right from the very first chapter. I was sucked into this world and didn’t want to come out of it so much so that I thought at times I might be suffering from “angel burn” myself! L.A Weatherly’s writing has a very nice smooth flow to it that kept the story moving along nicely making it incredibly hard to put down and when I managed on the rare occasion to tear myself away from this book it was still constantly on my mind. Willow is an incredibly likeable character who has a very, sweet, kind personality. Unlike a lot of YA heroines she never once annoyed me. She’s the kind of person every girl wants as a best friend. Weatherly also gets it spot on with Alex who has just the right amount of vulnerability and bravery to him, making you want to look after him one minute and swoon over his kick ass-ness the next. Together they make a brilliant couple who you find yourself routing for throughout the book. As they fall in love with each other you fall in love with them more and more too. They develop and complete each other which makes their love feel very real to the reader. Angel is the first book in the trilogy and I can already hardly wait for books two and three with the second book Angel Fire coming out June 2011. I can not begin to recommend this book enough, if you only read one young adult angel book make sure it’s Angel! 5 shiny halos. Thanks go to Usborne for sending me this book to review. Angel will be available in all good bookshops October 1st 2010. Book description taken from goodreads. My Rating 5/5 stars *****