Divinely Ruined by Diane Alberts

I’m always looking for books that have, what I consider to be, unique storylines.  The storyline could just be unique to me, because I have yet to read anything like it, but that’s good enough for me!  This is why when I read the description for Divinely Ruined by Diane Alberts, I offered to do the review.  Plus it doesn’t help that I’m a sucker for a good romance story and Divinely Ruined definitely sounded like it fit the bill.

 She finally meets a decent man–after she’s oath-bound never to touch men again!

Rebecca’s life sucked before she became an angel. Crappy apartment, awful jobs, abusive boyfriends–it was no wonder she jumped at the chance to escape it all and become a real live angel. The problem is Rebecca’s not very angelic, and she’ll have to do more to earn her wings than end her love affair with the word f–er, frick.

Especially when she’s assigned to save single father Tony Weis, whose less-than-pure thoughts wreak hell on a telepathic angel’s nerves. It’s all Rebecca can do to keep her hands off him…but when she loses her memory injuring herself to save Tony’s daughter, now it’s Tony’s turn to be her angel and care for her. But will Tony’s devotion tempt her from her angelic path, even if it means being human again?

Divinely Ruined (the first book in the Divine Temptations Trilogy) is atypical as it mainly centers on three characters and that’s it. The characters don’t have much interaction or dialogue with the “outside world”, which is something I’ve never come across before in another book.  Now, I don’t think this would work for a lot of stories, but for this one I loved that the story’s focus remained on the three characters as it helped to really bring out their special dynamic together; a dynamic that had me rooting for them from the start.

As for the characters they were wonderfully written; Alberts did an amazing job of making them “come to life”.  The first of the three characters is Rebecca, who is an angel on her first assignment.  If she completes the assignment she will get her very own wings.  The second character is a single father named Tony, who has lost everything but his little girl.  Which brings me to the third character, Miranda, Tony’s adorable daughter.

In Divinely Ruined, Rebecca is sent to help Tony and Miranda, which is the mission that would help her officially become an angel; leaving her extremely troubled life behind.  However, she doesn’t expect to develop feelings for Tony and Miranda; and she fights those feelings tooth and nail.  Her inner struggle is heart wrenching and captivating, which definitely made me feel for her.

Tony, on the other hand, has a different struggle.  Between trying to do right by his daughter, trying to wrap his head around the fact that Rebecca is an angel, and battling his feelings for her; you can’t help but fall for the guy.  Nothing is sexier than a man who loves their kid(s); but his relationship with Miranda is endearing to say the least.

Last but not least is Miranda, who is only 4 years old.  My daughter just turned 5, so it was easy for me to embrace this character.  Her sweetness, innocence, and unconditional love was something I could relate to (well most of the time anyway lol).  Miranda is the kind of kid everyone wishes they could have; her actions will both make you smile and want to cry.

Other than the three characters I just talked about; there is only one other character in the book that is really noteworthy.  Her name is Sally and she’s the angel “sponsoring” Rebecca, so to speak.  She’s the one who sent Rebecca on her assignment and she also watches over how Rebecca is doing.  Sally only makes a few appearances, but I love what they add to the story.  I think the character will end up surprising you; I know she surprised me.

So to sum it all up, I ended up really enjoying Divinely Ruined.  I enjoyed the little world that Alberts created; one that allowed me to feel so close to the characters.  Also, while Divinely Ruined is definitely a love story, it is also a story of redemption and learning to believe in yourself.  All in all, it was an excellent read and I can’t wait till the next installment in the trilogy!