Hush, Hush
| Hush, Hush | |
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 Front cover of Hush, Hush |
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| Author(s) | Becca Fitzpatrick |
| Cover artist | Lucy Ruth Cummins (design) James Porto (photograph) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Hush, Hush |
| Genre(s) | Young adult, Fantasy, Romance |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date | October 13, 2009 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) e-Book (Kindle) Audio Book (CD) |
| Pages | 391 |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-1-4169-8941-7 |
| Followed by | Crescendo (2010) |
Hush, Hush is a young adult novel written by Becca Fitzpatrick. It is written through the perspective of the main character, Nora Grey, who finds her life in danger when she becomes involved with a mysterious new student at her school named Patch, who is revealed to be a fallen angel with a dark connection to Nora herself.
The book became a Best Seller in the New York Times List and has been translated in several languages including Spanish, Chinese, Italian, French, Polish, Hebrew, Romanian, Turkish, Portuguese and Swedish.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Nora Grey is a sophomore living in Coldwater, Maine. She sits with her best friend, and only friend, Vee, in biology class, but when the seating plan is changed, she finds herself next to Patch Cipriano, a mysterious senior who has already failed the class twice. Nora finds Patch intolerable and unsettling, as Patch is in turns able to draw her in and repel her with his behavior. Patch seems to know more about Nora than her one friend does, and after several inexplicable and life-threatening encounters that all seem to involve Patch, Nora becomes obsessed with figuring out who Patch is and why he is so determined to be in her life.
Her quest for answers lands her in several dangerous situations, finally leading to the stunning revelation that Patch is in fact an angel who fell from Heaven, and who meant to kill her, explaining why he was in her school to begin with. Patch had found a way to become human through a text in the Book of Enoch. By killing Nora, he succeeds in killing his Nephilim vassal, Chauncey Langeais, making Patch to human. Dabria, Patch's fallen angel ex-girlfriend, wants Patch to save Nora's life, thus turning him into a guardian angel so that they can be together again. Patch insists on becoming human, following his original plan. But this plan goes haywire when he accidentally falls in love with Nora.
In a turn of events, Jules- a mutual friend of Nora's- is revealed to be Chauncey who wants revenge on Patch for tricking him into swearing an oath that will allow Patch to take over his body during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. Nora kills him by sacrificing herself amidst a fight in the school. Patch, having fallen in love with Nora, chooses to save her rather than accepting the sacrifice to become human. By saving her, he becomes her guardian angel, but also effectively kills Chauncey, who had no soul to reanimate his dead body. At the end of the book it is clear that Nora and Patch have their happily ever after... for now.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Nora Grey
Nora is a student at Coldwater High School (CHS). She's good at biology and tutors her best friend Vee and later, Patch. After the rearrangement of the seating plan in the biology lab, she is now sitting with Patch. She assumes something is not totally "right" with him and that he is even more dark and mysterious because of the lack of knowledge Patch is giving her about him and his past. Though she's attracted to him, she struggles with it due to his secrets of his past and the odd situations that surround him. She soon meets Elliot and Jules, and is unable to decide who to trust between Patch, the bad boy or the good guys, Jules and Elliot. Her father was murdered a year ago, and she is forced to see the school counselor, who has her own agenda. Nora lives alone with her mom in Coldwater.
Nora is described as a “smokey-eyed brunette with volumes of curly hair that holds its own against even the best flatiron”. She is also described frequently as a redhead, giving the idea that her hair must be dark red/brown, and is more than 6inches shorter than Patch, who is 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)" tops, making her about 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m) - 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) .[1] She is also described as having long, “bar stool” legs. The book is told from her first-person perspective. Patch and Jules mention several times that she has a "weak mind"; this doesn't mean that she's weak-willed, but that it's extremely difficult for her to block out mind controllers, at first, like Nephilim and fallen angels.
[edit] Patch Cipriano
Patch, a new senior at Coldwater High, is described as a “dark-Levi’s dark-Henley dark boots kind of guy”[2] who smells of mint and earth. He is Nora's biology partner. He keeps his past under wraps and is accused of more lies than truth from Nora- he is not, in fact, lying, he simply avoids the questions. He can be sly and brooding, and frequently leaves Nora alternately furious or tongue tied. He invades Nora's thoughts and puts images into her head and speaks into her thoughts multipule times. He uses his charms as a way of getting what he wants and avoiding unwanted questions, though he begins to open up as the novel progresses. He spends most of his time playing pool at Bo's Arcade.
Nora eventually learns he is a fallen angel, who fell when he loved a human girl and tried to be with her. After failing to take control of a human body, the avenging angels ripped Patch's wings off on his way back to heaven. However, he knows how to become human- by offering Nora, his Nephilim vassal's female descendant, as a sacrifice, he will become human. On the other hand, Dabria, Patch's old flame, tells him to become Nora's guardian angel by saving her from death. Patch is left with the choice of being human or returning as a guardian angel. later in the book he accidentally falls in love with Nora, and having the choice of becoming a human or guardian angel when Nora sacrifices herself for him he chooses to become a guardian angel.
As a fallen angel, he is stripped of most of his angelic powers, but can still manipulate the minds of weak willed humans, possess them for short periods and create illusions. He cannot feel physically—it is described like experiencing the world through a pane of glass—but he can experience emotions. When he is restored as a guardian angel, he regains the ability to fly, though he still cannot feel, as he has not yet "earned" that right to feel back. He is described to have slightly curly, long, black hair, black eyes and six-foot-two.
[edit] Vee Sky
Vee is Nora's best friend and extremely loyal. She is funny throughout the book, but can be a bit immature, especially about sex. She is also quick to judge people and will ignore facts if she doesn't like them. She is attacked by a man in a ski mask, later revealed to be Dabria/Miss Greene. After the attack, she shows an extreme distrust in Patch, mistaking him for the attacker. She secretly goes out with Jules until his real identity is revealed. Vee is described as being "a few pounds over curvy" with blond hair and green eyes and "nearly 6ft tall".
[edit] Elliot Saunders
Elliot is a transfer to Coldwater High from Kinghorn Prep, a private school. He meets Vee and Nora at a coffee shop on his first morning at Coldwater High (before school). Nora soon discovers that he is suspected of killing a girl, who just so happens to be his ex-girlfriend, though he flirts with her and defends her at every opportunity, and therefore she is unsure of who he really is.Soon after Nora finds out he was questioned about the murder of his ex he shows up out of nowhere at her house, drunk, and tries to get her to come camping with him and Jules, which she later finds out was a trap she had avoided. It is revealed that Jules was his benefactor as a scholar in Kinghorn Prep. Jules later on tests Elliot's loyalty by making him choose between his girlfriend or money, and Elliot ultimately gives in to Jules. He is revealed to be Jules' pawn in his plan to exact revenge on Patch by hurting Nora. He is incapacitated by Jules in the school library while luring Nora into the trap. Vee and the police arrive just in time to save Elliot from dying.
[edit] Chauncey Langeais/Jules
Accompanied by Elliot, he is dark and more mysterious than Patch because he doesn't talk much. He is revealed in the later part of the book to be Patch's vassal, Chauncey, who wants to have revenge on the fallen angel for tricking him into swearing an oath that will allow Patch to take control over his body for two weeks during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. He inherited the power to create illusions from his father, using it to frighten Nora numerous times in the book. He would also use Elliot as his pawn in his plan to hurt Patch. As a Nephilim, he is killed when Nora sacrificed herself by jumping off one of the ceiling rafters in the gym. Patch explains that when Nora came back, Chauncey didn't have a soul to reanimate his body, successfully killing him for good. Vee Sky, who dated him for a short period of time, describes him as looking like a hard-core bad boy.
[edit] Dabria/Miss Greene
Dabria is an Angel of Death and Patch's former lover. She came down to the earth to find Patch who fell after trying to be with a human girl by becoming human himself. She wanted Patch to get back his wings by saving Nora from death and go back to her. She also becomes the new psychologist at school in an attempt to get close to Nora and Patch. She later attempts to kill Nora at one point to get him back, but is unsuccessful. Due to these deeds she begins to fall, and Patch speeds up the process by ripping her already weakened wings off. Nora describes her as having flawless pale skin, sea blue eyes, a lush mouth, and fine, straight blond hair that tumbles past her elbows.
[edit] Marcie Millar
The easy and popular girl at Coldwater High who has an on-going grudge with Nora. Marcie and Nora have been enemies since middle school, when Marcie publicly displayed Nora's underwear and spray-painted 'whore' on her locker. The reasons for her hatred of Nora are unknown until the 2nd book, Crescendo. Her dad is the owner of Coldwater's Toyota dealership and she lives in an affluent neighborhood. Marcie has strawberry blond hair and freckles concealed under 'half a bottle of foundation'. She is revealed to be Nora's half sister.
[edit] Coach McConaughy
Nora, Vee and Patch's biology teacher. Patch influences him through his mind to rearrange the seating plan to get closer to Nora. She and Vee (unsuccessfully) try to persuade him to put them back together. He makes Nora Patch's tutor when she tries to convince him to change the seats back.
[edit] Dorothea
The caretaker of the Greys' house who also looks after Nora when her mother is away on a business trip. When Nora's mother can no longer afford her services she is fired without warning. She is described as Nora's 2nd mother.
[edit] Rixon
Patch's closest friend who knows all of his darkest secrets, and is always by Patch's side. He is also a fallen angel. Rixon is described as "sexy to the max" and Irish. He is a tall, stringy guy with a hawk-like nose and shaggy blue-black hair.
[edit] Sequel
The sequel to Hush, Hush is titled Crescendo. The sequel focuses on Nora's Nephilim bloodlines and the search for her father, who might not be as dead as everyone believes. The third book is Silence. The last book, called Finale is said to come out in Fall 2012.
