Soul Crossed

the blurb

One Demon.

One Angel.

One Soul.

Josh lived a reckless, selfish life, so upon his death, escaping the eternal torments of Hell by assuming the role of a powerful, soul-corrupting demon is an easy choice. His first soul assignment doesn’t seem too hard: the mortal Camden is already obsessed with weapons, pain, and torture. If only Josh wasn’t distracted by Cam's beautiful friend, Grace.

Grace never expected to die violently at age sixteen, but now she’s an Angel, responsible for saving a soul. She can already see past Camden’s earthly flaws, so the job should be be easy. If only that handsome, playboy Josh would stop getting in the way.

It’s forbidden for an Angel to be with a Demon, so if Josh and Grace stop resisting each other, the results would be disastrous.

And only one can claim Cam’s soul.

my review

This book was such a twist on the usual angels and demons storyline.  It was the kind of story that almost redefines the ideas of what is evil or what is good.  There are sometimes just no clear lines.

The story opens with a bang, with Josh finding himself in Hell immediately after his death.  He is faced with an unexpected choice… become a demon or face eternal torture.  His mission is to push a troubled boy over the edge, to push him into becoming the Antichrist.  Lucifer himself gives Josh his assignment, believing it to be the End Times, his time to rule the world.  Cam, his assignment, is so disturbed that it seems like an easy task.  Until Grace.  Beautiful, Angelic Grace.  Her mission is the same, to turn Cam, but to good and to save the world from Lucifer’s reign.

It was a surprisingly intense and dark read.  Cam is such a disturbed kid that it was often hard to read.  With Josh, he exposed his dark side, a side so dark that it deeply disturbed Josh.  With Grace, you could see him try to find his good side.  But it was so easy for him to explore his dark side, but his good side seemed to be a struggle, only explored because of his attraction to Grace rather than something that truly existed within him.  It makes you questions the capacity for evil and motivations for good that can exist within any of us.

The characters were so amazing, whether you loved them, hated them, or were terrified of them.  Who was truly evil, and who was not?  Were the good always good?  Were the evil unable to find redemption?  The characters made you question everything.  Josh made terrible mistakes when he was alive, mistakes that brought him to Hell.  But was he really evil, or was he just his own victim?  Even Cam… were all of his evil tendencies really only his own fault, or did his life push him in that direction?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It was dark, disturbing, and intense and beautifully constructed.  There was the ever eternal battle between good and evil.  There was forbidden love.  There was mystery and intrigue.  There were happy moments and horribly sad moments.  And there were so many twists and turns.  A really great read!

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reading challenges:

• 2015 Ebook Challenge
• 2015 Everything YA Reading Challenge
• 2015 NetGalley Reading Challenge
• 2015 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge