Book Review: Touched by Elisa S. Amore

---

Touched
Touched Saga #1

Author: Elisa S. Amore

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Supernatural
Released: January 31, 2016
Review Source: Author

Based On A Norwegian Legend A Sealed Fate An Angel of Death A Forbidden Love

“As seductive as Meet Joe Black. As mysterious as City of Angels. As powerful as Twilight.”

What are you willing to sacrifice when the only person who can save you is the same one who has to kill you?

After vampires and werewolves, after wizards and fallen angels, a new breed of Angels is here to usher you into their dark world. An ancient, deadly, inescapable race. No one can see them. They’re shadows of destiny. They’re knights of death. They’re the Subterraneans and they’re here to claim our lives. Commanded by a mysterious congregation called the Màsala, the Angels of Death ensure that each man’s destiny takes its due course on Earth. But what happens when love intervenes? Can an Angel of Death deny his own nature and challenge destiny? Can love rebel against fate?

When Gemma’s eyes first meet the dark, piercing gaze of Evan James, an ominous shadow creeps into her life, ultimately leading her to face her destiny. She doesn't realize Evan is one of Death's soldiers and that Death is summoning her. Her time is up: Gemma must die . . . and Evan has been sent to kill her. But what if she’s the only one who can truly see him?

Against every rule. Against fate itself. Against everything and everyone. A story of forbidden love and star-crossed destinies.

I wanted to be touched by this story, but I was not.

I really truly wanted to like this book, the plot was interesting and drew me in fast. Its rare but it does happen when I find a book I cannot finish reading. I read through the reviews online and there are an overwhelming number of five star reviews but many I believe were misleading. If not, then maybe the book reads better in Spanish as many of these reviews must have come from back when the book was first released in 2012 in a different language. Having read to about 40% I wasn't interested in continuing, and that depressed me because I so wanted to love this book.

Of all the characters introduced, only Peter seemed like a realistic and believable character. He felt genuine, he had real reactions to the events and people around him and I felt for him as he pined after Gemma who was so clearly in the dark about his obvious feelings for her. Gemma herself clearly suffers from a Romantic Obsessive-Compulsive disorder, similar in many ways to Bella Swan from the Twilight Saga (think when Edward went MIA in book 2). It's scary to read page after page of how she describes her dark wild boy, repeated verbatim every page. The wild boy, is clearly an agent of death, if not simply an assassin reaper, which still sounds so cool, but he is only cool until he comes to kill and collect Gemma. Then he turns into the male version of her, just as obsessed and repetitive. Its kinda sad because for all that I did read the amount of time spent together was like maybe a whole whopping fifteen minutes combined. I put the book down, I'll still wish for a better version of such a great idea for a story.