CROSSED

This first installment of a romance series introduces an angelic, otherworldly hero.

Desperate to escape a life bound to a man she doesn’t want, Trinity travels through a portal from her world to Earth. Temporarily blind, almost naked, and with no memory of who she is or where she’s from, she lands in the middle of a street in a Minnesota town. The stranger who rescues her turns out to be a young artist named Jayden. After bringing Trinity to the studio that also serves as his apartment, he does his best to care for this young woman, who is as much a mystery to herself as she is to him—and she’s quite a mystery. Cars, cellphones, french fries, almost everything, it seems, is new to her (“This thing Jayden called a shower was the most amazing contraption ever”). She wears a gold bracelet that she cannot explain. She burns her hand because she doesn’t know that she shouldn’t touch a hot saucepan, but her blisters heal almost instantly. She speaks English, but she doesn’t understand slang or metaphorical speech—nor does she know the meaning of the word girlfriend. She does know that Jayden makes her feel things she’s never experienced before. And when she finally kisses him, wings unfurl from her shoulder blades. Jayden feels the same intense connection that Trinity does, and only a moment passes before his shock turns into delight. They will learn more about who Trinity is and where she’s from, but this knowledge will only come as danger gets closer to her. It appears that the would-be mate she fled wants her back—and that she’s not the only person from her world to travel to Earth. The resulting drama is fast-paced and enjoyable, and the ending is emotionally satisfying. But there are a few weak points in Rush’s vibrant story. Jayden has a girlfriend who is cartoonishly nasty and inconsistently portrayed. She is fiercely jealous and determined to hang onto her man but also easily dispatched. And there doesn’t seem to be any logic to which earthly phenomena are familiar to Trinity and which aren’t. For example, she’s never seen a refrigerator before, but she knows what to do with a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Provides all the genre pleasures that romance fans demand with some fantasy flair.