REVIEW: Divinely Ruined by Diane Alberts

Original Cover

Series: Divine Temptation #1
Format: Kindle Book
Release Date: April 2012
My Copy: Self-purchased
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

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 is a sweet and light-hearted story and so far Diane Alberts has been two for two in my book. I read this sweet novella immediately after I read Diane’s contemporary romance, Try Me. Like with Try Me, I grabbed up Divinely Ruined because of the cover. I mean look at how gorgeous that girl is with her siren red hair. Love it! But Divinely Ruined isn’t just about a beautiful cover. The story within was charming and I instantly fell in love with its not so Angelic female heroine, Rebecca Chance.

Rebecca Chance has been given a second chance to do something meaningful with her life. Her life before becoming an Angel was downright crappy. She was down on her luck, living in a crappy apartment, working a dead-end job and involved in an abusive relationship. Thinking her life was pretty much FML, Rebecca is given an opportunity to be one of the few humans to become an angel. There’s only one problem with Rebecca becoming an honest-to-goodness angel, she’s not very angelic. Rebecca curses, thinks unholy thoughts and has a tendency to often lose her temper. Her fate in earning her wings relies on whether she can save Anthony ‘Tony’ Weis from losing his soul.

New Cover

I liked Rebecca from the get-go and not just because of her potty mouth but because you could tell how much getting angel wings meant to her. She’s sassy but kind hearted and you’re pulling for her to not have to go back to her miserable human life. She’s determine to do a good job but her assignment is proving to be quite a challenge and pushes her to the limits of losing her temper, often. Tony Wiess is a jaded man and father to an adorable five-year-old daughter. Burned by his ex-wife, Tony has a hard time ever trusting a woman again so when Rebecca pops up in his life he has no desires of trusting her especially when she tells him she was sent to save his soul. He’s instantly attracted to Rebecca and the chemistry between the two was electric from the beginning. He and Rebecca seemed like an unlikely pair but suffered the same feelings of not wanting to be hurt and disappointed with life ever again. Tony’s four-year-old daughter was so adorably cute and plays a pretty major role in the connecting Tony and Rebecca together. My heart melted seeing how sweet Tony’s relationship was with his daughter and how Miranda instantly bonded with Rebecca which brought out her motherly instincts.

There were a two things about Divinely Ruined that bothered me a little but didn’t hinder me from loving the book overall. First, the book is categorized under one of my favorite genres, paranormal romance. The angel aspect is what puts this under paranormal romance but aside from being an angel and able to read Tony’s mind that’s where the paranormal fantasy ends. Second, Tony and Rebecca’s relationship felt a little too rushed. I understand that they needed to progress pretty quickly given that this was a short story but I would have liked it better if the book was drawn out a little more. Diane definitely had a lot going to draw out a longer story but in the end I still ended up liking the book.

I love when I discover a new author and totally fall in love with their characters, stories and writing. Diane Alberts is a writer that I will keep on my watch list and as I’ve said before her books will be an automatic buy. Since Divinely Ruined is the first in her Divine Temptation trilogy I am really looking forward to the next two books. Alberts has a lovely way of making realistic characters and ones that are easy to fall in love with. If you’re looking for a quick, feel good paranormal romance with lots of heart then I would definitely recommend you pick up Divinely Ruined.

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