Angel Dust by Sarah Mussi

Title: Angel Dust
Author: Sarah Mussi
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Publisher: Hot Key Books (2nd August 2012)
Blurb:

One look into your dark eyes was all it took. You were the one. You were my temptation. The one whose soul I had to collect. And you were young, and you were beautiful, and you were flowing with energy. And my body trembled. I didn’t want to see you die.

Serafina, one of God’s brightest angels, is tasked with collecting the soul of gangsta Marcus Montague. He is bound for Hell, and is showing no signs of repenting. But one look at him undoes her – how far will she go to save the boy she loves?

Rating: ** (2 stars)
Review:

ANGEL DUST by Sarah Mussi tells the story of an angel called Serafina who, during the course of her duties, is sent to collect the soul of Marcus Montague – a gang leader whose time is up. Collecting Marcus’s soul doesn’t go according to plan for Serafina, and things rapidly spiral out of control from there.

ANGEL DUST wasn’t quite what I expected. For a start, the story is narrated by the seraphim Serafina which makes for an interesting and often odd narrative. It is certainly a very religious heavy one. On the one hand Serafina seems very knowledgeable and wise, but on the other she doesn’t understand what we would consider simple things like the concept of money or jokes. To be totally honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.

If you’re not a fan of insta love, then this probably isn’t the book for you. It feels like almost the second Serafina lays eyes on the mortal Marcus she falls in love, and is therefore incapable of doing her job. I found this really hard to swallow, I mean what is so special about Marcus Montague that makes a thousand-year old seraphim fall in love with him? By the end of ANGEL DUST I didn’t really feel like I knew him at all as a character.

Redemption, and the fact that we have to choose to ask for forgiveness, is the main theme of ANGEL DUST. Mussi does a good job with this theme, especially showing how difficult in the modern society repenting can be – Mussi ponders the question of what bad deeds done for good reasons mean.