Nora is your mostly typical high school sophomore. She goes to class, tries her best to earn top grades, has a good relationship with her Mom, and a best friend she is almost constantly with. In comparison, Patch is almost an anti-hero. He is dark and mysterious. He seems to have just shown up out of nowhere, with no real past (at least that he is willing to talk about), no friends and no family.Nora is both drawn to and appalled by him when they first meet. Nora's feelings about Patch don't change much throughout the rest of the story. In most books when the heroine just cannot figure out the hero, the reader has at least some insight into what he is really like and we wait patiently for her to GET.A.CLUE. This is so not the case in this story. Patch is as elusive to us as he is to Nora. This also, does not change much during the story. And while we learn about a lot of his past, he ends the story still being somewhat mysterious.I really liked Nora's character. She seemed like a real teenage girl, with real emotions and a solid backing to her actions. Her inexplicable attraction to Patch makes her do things she normally wouldn't, but you can see her trying to fight it for a long time before she finally gives in totally. Patch, on the other hand, seems almost insincere in his feelings. I didn't really buy it when he first told Nora how much he cared about her. His actions really seemed to say otherwise: he taunted and teased her, refused to share any personal details about himself, and was sometimes creepy in a stalkerish way. At the end of Hush, Hush I still didn't feel like I totally `got' Patch. (I'm hoping more of him is revealed in the next book, Crescendo.)Oh, and did I mention? Patch is a fallen angel. After lusting after a mortal girl, he was banished to Earth, wings ripped off, to live with no feeling. He can feel emotional things - sadness, happiness, lust... especially that last one, but physical sensations are completely lost to him.After being assigned as partners in Biology Class, Patch and Nora's subsequent encounters are fraught with danger, mystery, and not a little attraction. There is also another new boy; his mostly silent, totally creepy best friend; trips to a pool hall; that prickly feeling on the back of your neck; a crazy Angel ex-girlfriend; several cases of mistaken identity; teenage sleuthing; and did I just see what I think I saw?!  Phew! Nora and Patch do wind up together in the end, but not in a traditional way. I won't say more, because I don't want to give away the big twist at the ending.  ;o)I would definitely recommend this book. It was different from other YA books I have read recently, in a totally good way. I can't wait to read Crescendo (out now) to see bad boy Patch's new softer side.~Review by: Book Addict from When Pen Met Paper [...] 

Question: What is the character's past?
Answer: ends the story still being somewhat mysterious