A Touch Mortal (A Touch Trilogy, #1) in Once Upon a Twilight blog

Oct 14, 2010 Christin (Portrait of a Book) rated it liked it

Shelves: young-adult, urban-fantasy, 100in2011, dac2011, book-portrait-review

When I read that stories are about angels and/or fallen angels, I tend to think that the story is going to follow a fairly familiar pattern. A Touch Mortal was definitely something different and gave more complexity to the age-old good vs. evil battle.

Eden's life isn't what she would call happy. It seems as though she's becoming more and more invisible to everyone around her, and she's struggling to find something to live for. Then she meets Az and Gabe. There's something different about them, b When I read that stories are about angels and/or fallen angels, I tend to think that the story is going to follow a fairly familiar pattern. A Touch Mortal was definitely something different and gave more complexity to the age-old good vs. evil battle.

Eden's life isn't what she would call happy. It seems as though she's becoming more and more invisible to everyone around her, and she's struggling to find something to live for. Then she meets Az and Gabe. There's something different about them, but she can't quite place it. Against her better judgement, she goes to dinner with Az. Two weeks later their relationship has become very involved, but Az knows this can't happen. To protect Eden, Az does the unthinkable... Eden is suddenly plunged into an unknown world, one of good and bad angels (Bound and Fallen) and Siders, other people like her. As Eden spends more time in this new world, she finds herself at the center of an old battle, unsure of whom she can trust with her life...or her heart.

A Touch Mortal is a new take on an angel story, one with a much darker edge. I enjoyed the inventiveness of this story as well as the gradual transformations of Eden and Gabe. They both grew stronger throughout the book, proving that what is expected is not always what's right or what will happen. I also especially liked Kristen's character and her poetry quotations. Her interesting shopping habits and her snappy dialogue with Eden added yet another dimension to the book. The suspense of what side would win built throughout the book, and I was kept guessing until the end about what exactly would happen and what the truth behind everything was.

However, I did have a few problems with this novel. I felt as though it was missing some important connections and explanations, causing the world-building to feel incomplete. While the story is worth deciphering things, there were several scenes that still left me confused. It is worth noting that there are several mentions of suicide in the book, and while the the subject is not explored, it is not treated lightly either. Finally, there are two time skips in this book, but rather than hurt the story, they actually move it forward.

With interesting characters and an even more intriguing world, A Touch Mortal is the first book of what promises to be a good trilogy. I'll be looking forward to reading A Touch Morbid! ...more

Like · see review

Jan 19, 2011 Once rated it liked it

Shelves: debut-author-2011

A Touch Mortal had my interest since I read the blurb when I added this book for my Debut Author Challenge. Leah gives us a new kinda tale to read about. The characters were all very interesting at times. The plot was great but the delivery fell a bit short for me. I would loose connection with the characters when the book would jump. The talk of suicide also put a small damper on my reading, I just questioned if there could have been maybe a different option for the Siders to turn. Suicide is j A Touch Mortal had my interest since I read the blurb when I added this book for my Debut Author Challenge. Leah gives us a new kinda tale to read about. The characters were all very interesting at times. The plot was great but the delivery fell a bit short for me. I would loose connection with the characters when the book would jump. The talk of suicide also put a small damper on my reading, I just questioned if there could have been maybe a different option for the Siders to turn. Suicide is just such a strong theme and I don't know if the amount of talk and action was needed. The foul language actually didn't affect me as much as the talk of suicide. Now that being said Leah wrote the story that you feel when they hurt and when they are sad and of course loved. It's definitely a new paranormal world to read about. Just took me a bit to understand the whole gist about it.

You meet Eden, she is a somewhat depressed and having thoughts she shouldn't be having. She meets Az one day down by the beach and its a instant connection. Now what Eden doesn't know is that Az is a partially Fallen Angel. He was punished for being in love with a mortal and now has to bear wings. Az best friend is a Angel still bound to heaven and discovers that Eden is path-less. So they know they have to rush her to take her own life because if not the Fallen will come after her to torture her so that Az will Fall. So this is when things fall into motion and jump around until the end. Eden has to discover what happen to her and why. Will she forgive Az or will she move on. Then she learns she is not your normal Sider and all Siders are now afraid of what she can do. Then finally she discovers why she has this certain power, will she accept who and why they did it. You will have to read to find out. Can't wait what see what happen in the next installment in the series. I do recommend this for a mature YA reader due to strong context and language.

review link: http://www.onceuponatwilight.com/2011... ...more

Like · see review

Jul 14, 2010 NocturnalRavings(Jodie) rated it it was ok

Shelves: angelology

I don't know why I didn't like this as much as I thought I would. It was like a wave pool,during its highs I was flipping pages and couldn't put it down....Then the next chapter I could barely read a page... ...more

Like · see review