Kissed by an angel

Ivy and Tristan are meant to be together. Both stunningly attractive, brilliantly talented and very much in love, they think their happiness will last forever. When a terrible car accident shatters their world, killing Tristan and injuring Ivy, she must face life alone - or so she thinks. However, Tristan is watching over her as her guardian angel - so close she can feel his touch and hear his voice. And no one needs a guardian angel more than Ivy, because someone is trying to kill her. But if Tristan saves Ivy, his mission on earth will be finished, and he'll have to leave her behind. Will saving Ivy mean losing her forever?

As you can tell just by reading the blurb of this book that it is a tragic love story that will move you. I know that they say that you should not judge a book by its cover, but I find that I am a good judge of character and judge books by their cover anyway, even though it is the story which matters. This system has never failed me and so in the summer of 2009 I walked into Waterstones- for the first time in a couple of years; since the last time I had read a book they had been children's ones- and the beautiful cover attracted me to buy this book. This book is what reminded me of my love for books two years ago. The story was inspiring and I have now dozens of books in my room and a finished book of my own typed up onto my laptop with two others on the way. This book was my starting point.

Anyway back to the story within its pages. It has been two years since I read it, but I seem to remember stories of the characters in books better than my own memories. Kissed by an Angel is both a heart breaking and heart warming book which reveals personalities of people, people like the ones you know who have hidden secrets and a different side to their personality. It represents how easily a wall can be put between two people separating them, how even people who love each other can be torn apart by life. 

Tristan is taken away from Ivy, he is killed in the car crash and is left on a different plane of life than her. Through Ivy's story we experience the tragedy of losing someone, of grief and pain and terror and lost faith. As Ivy has always believed in angels and now, after losing the only person she has ever loved how can she believe in something so good when things like that could happen. Yet Tristan is not lost he is still there, wondering the streets he used to walk on, he can see her, be near her but she can not see him, they can not touch. In Tristan's story we discover a life of someone who's invisible to the rest of the world, who has lost everything even though it is right there in front of him he can not grasp it, or comfort his grieving father or let Ivy know that he loves her so. 

As Ivy becomes more distraught by the loss of Tristan, Tristan grows stronger, realizes his death was not an accident but a set up, someone had messed with the car so that they crashed. He meets a girl whom has also died, Lacey, and she teaches him what it is like to be an angel, how to materialize so that his hand can stroke a cat or project so that he can make a sound people can hear. Meanwhile Ivy finds comfort in her new step brother Gregory and begins to hang around with him and his friends. But what she doesn't know is what Gregory is really after and his friend Eric begins to harass her. But Tristan is worried, he realizes Ivy is in danger, that the crash was not to kill him but her. He tries with all the power he has to protect her but is still unsure who he is protecting her from. He discovers he can communicate with her through other people but of course has to be subtle, she'd get scared. He uses her friends Beth and Will to reach her but didn't know that Will was falling for Ivy. 

Ivy begins to remember things, starts to notice she is the one who was suppose to die, fears for her life. Someone very close to her is trying to get her, but she doesn't know who. Then after being set up again, the incident at the train station makes her believe family she is suicidal, so whoever is after her would get away with her death if they ever succeeded. Ivy is scared, alone and with even smaller faith than ever. 

But she finds a friend in Will, she begins to fall for him. But Will has a secret, he knows Tristan possesses his body, but he doesn't tell her. Ivy discovers for herself soon enough and together they discover who is really after her.
Scraping death by merely inches Ivy survives the last stab at her death, through both Will and Tristan's help. In the end she finds faith again in Will and knowing that Tristan is still out there.

This is just a brief outline of the story, the real one will leave you breathless, with tingles running down your spine and goose bumps all over your skin. It will take away your belief in peoples humanity, teach you not to trust, but it will also show you there are hero's out there, beneath there own little flaws and disrupted lives, it will teach you who to trust and to have faith. 

I have the next installment sitting on my shelf at home waiting to be read (Evercrossed). I hope my brief blog about the story has convinced you to go out and buy the books, because it is one of the most amazing stories and even two years on I remember it. This book will inspire young readers and still manage to touch the hearts of older readers- a book for everyone.