Angel Dust by Sarah Mussi [Review + Q & A]

• ARC received for review
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Hot Key Books (2 Aug 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1471400026
• ISBN-13: 978-1471400025

Would you move heaven and earth for the one you love? ANGEL DUST is a powerful, gritty and utterly modern tragic love story with a twist. When Serafina, the brightest and most beloved of all God's angels, is sent to collect Marcus Montague - the original badman - and take him to Hell, she finds herself powerfully drawn to him and makes a decision that places her in the middle of a war between Heaven and Hell. Can Serafina fall in love without falling from grace? Can Marcus's soul be saved? And just who is the mysterious and ever-so-helpful stranger Harry?


Cover:  I love this cover! Dark and beautiful at the same time.  Relevant as well!  


I so wanted to love this book more than I did.  The blurb definitely made it sound like something I would devour- an angel, a gangsta and a forbidden love.  
It took me so long to get into this book-3 days to clear the first 100 pages.
I didn't connect with Serafina as a character- her narrative voice was annoying.  She seemed to be very knowledgeable one minute and then be completely naive to the next.  For example, she always wanted to go in a minicab, but didn't know she needed money.  She's supposedly thousands of years old but she really didn't come across that way.
Also, she risks everything for Marcus, but I genuinely don't see why.  They don't really see them spend much time together, and I didn't really get a feel for Marcus's character.  We know he's a gangsta, but he's not all bad as he takes care of his family.  That's it.  That's the extent of his character.  I wish we had seen them spend more tine together so I could believe their romance was real, instead of one-sided obsession on Serafina's part.
Also I found the ending to be too ambiguous, after 350 of waiting to see if Serafina could save Marcus's soul and they be together I didn't feel it was successfully concluded to my satisfaction. 
I loved the idea of this book but in the end it just wasn't for me- 2.5/5 stars.




Q & A with Sarah

1.       Did you have any reading routines or quirks while writing Angel Dust?

Writing ANGEL DUST was one of the most exciting and all-consuming things I have ever done. Although I’d had the idea for a while and spent a lot of time thinking over the story and getting to know Serafina, my protagonist, when I met up with Sarah Odedina, the MD of Hot Key, and she told me she’d like ANGEL DUST to be on the launch list of their brand new shiny publishing house (WOW, faint and take deep gulps of air) – I had to swing into action. And swinging into action meant getting up at 4.00 a.m., writing my target number of words (4,000 a day in the first drafting stages), doing my day-job, returning home to edit that morning’s word count and finally flopping down in front of a DVD (all angel based or dark romance or plot based or classical references that could inform my thinking about genre, narrative and setting!) and then a chapter or two of my chosen target audience reading. Not much eh! 

2.       What’s the best thing about being an author?

The best thing about being an author is getting a note on Facebook, or a few characters on twitter, or an email from a friend telling you someone liked your story. For me that’s what it’s about. A writer without a reader is like a fish with a bicycle!

3.       What was the easiest/hardest part of writing Angel Dust?

The hardest part of writing ANGEL DUST was getting the voice of Serafina. What would an angel sound like? What might she know? Not know? It was soooooo hard. I wanted her to be totally good but that made her very naïve. If you never think bad of anyone or anything – then you are really too innocent to be true. Plus I wanted her to sound holy – but Biblical language is very stilted and at odds with how I wanted Sera to sound… oh, it was hard!

The easiest bit of writing ANGEL DUST was the scenes between Serafina and Marcus. They almost wrote themselves. When two people are in love there is something special in the energy they create when they are together. I wanted those scenes to last forever.

4.       What do you think most appeals to your readers?

I think readers want events and characters in a book that they can believe in and like. Readers are very smart. They will soon work out if something is a bit creaky in the plot. So as a writer I have to be sure I give them my best. But I think what appeals to readers also appeals to writers: a fantastic story with danger and excitement, being drawn into a special world or place that offers some kind of meaning and events that unfold to a satisfying end – albeit maybe a sad one.

5.What is your dream cast for your book?

I want new faces for ANGEL DUST. New, young and very talented. I don’t want someone to be watching those poignant moments between Sera and Marcus and thinking of Twilight!