Hush, Hush is a Paranormal Romance by Becca Fitzpatrick. It tells the story of Nora Grey, a perfectly normal high schooler who dreams of getting a scholarship to Harvard or Yale and is not interested in dating. All this is forgotten when Patch enters the picture. As is to be expected, they end up in a relationship together. This is accompanied by various frightening events happening to Nora, including a person in a ski mask attacking her several times, someone peeking in her bedroom window, and someone ransacking her bedroom, and it looks like it's the work of Patch. Or is it?
The series currently consists of four books (Hush, Hush, Crescendo, Silence, and Finale). There is also a graphic novel in the works.
Tropes present in the work:
- Adults Are Useless: These books give A Series of Unfortunate Events a run for their money in this department.
- Aerith and Bob: Angel names range from Patch/Jev to Rixon to Dabria.
- All Women Are Lustful: Nora bemoans how she can't keep control of herself whenever Patch is around. Vee complains about how she's still a virgin. And it's Exaggerated with Marcie Millar in Crescendo.
- Author Avatar: The way Nora is described bears similarities to how Becca Fitzpatrick looks in terms of hair and body build.
- Brainy Brunette: Nora is a straight-A student who is shooting for a prestigious college.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Nora shows signs of this in Silence when she realizes how much her mother has changed things in their household.
- Contrived Coincidence: The entire sequence of events that gets Patch and Nora stuck in the motel room together, with no means of communication or way to get home.
- Cursed with Awesome: Being a fallen angel means that you don't feel pain, are insanely strong, and can mind control others. All fallen angels still hate what they are.
- Dating What Mommy Hates: Nora is well aware that her mother doesn't like or trust Patch.
- Disappeared Dad: Nora's father was murdered shortly before the first book begins.
- Damsel in Distress: Nora has no less than three different parties who want her dead in the first book alone, and at least two others in the sequel. While she does avert being a Neutral Female, she still relies on Patch more or less for all her rescuing.
- Double Standard: It's perfectly fine for Vee to gold dig by dating Jules, Patch to use a G-rated seduction on his ex-girlfriend to get what he wants, and for Nora to all but have sex with Patch in a public restroom. Everyone decries Marcie Millar as a shallow, materialistic harlot though.
- Female Gaze: Nora often has trouble not staring at how ripped Patch is.
- Happily Married: Nora's parents were this, before her father died.
- Informed Ability: For all we hear about how intelligent Nora is, she proves herself to be pretty dumb sometimes.
- Leg Focus: Nora is described as having "bar stool legs".
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Hank Millar is the father of both Marcie and Nora. He's also a Nephilim.
- Mind Control:
- In Finale, Nora is trained on how do this. It turns out to be her best skill as a Nephilim.
- Mind Rape: Patch employs this on Chauncy, as well as Nora. Jules also performs it on Nora.
- Moral Myopia: When Patch stalks Nora with the intent to murder her, it's excusable, but when Dabria attempts to murder her, it's an offense bad enough to tear her wings off.
- Near-Rape Experience: Nora is physically threatened several times by Patch and Elliot in ways that read really similar to attempted rape.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Sexual assault happens to Nora with Patch, with this as the excuse.
- One Head Taller: Patch is six inches taller than Nora.
- Possession Burnout: The hosts of Fallen Angels generally have this happen to them, which is why they seek to possess Nephilim, who are immortal and whose bodies do not burn out, so they can look forward to an eternity of possession.
- "No Peeking!" Request: When Scott wakes up Nora in the middle of the night so they can break into one of the Black Hand's warehouses, she asks him to turn around before she gets out of bed, since she finds her pajamas too revealing, but he just jokes that's he's a guy so that request is "like asking a kid not to glance at the candy counter".
- Protagonist-Centered Morality:
- Patch walks around threatening, mindraping and torturing Nephilim, but seeing as he’s doing it for Nora, it’s okay. It's treated as evil when someone else does it.
- Nora does a good few cruel things to Marcie for revenge purposes (for example, breaking into her bedroom and stealing her diary and anything Patch gave her), but all of them are excused as being justified. The few Kick the Dog moments Marcie gets are treated like she horrifically tortured Nora.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Vee fits this trope as she goes to break into the school with Jules and Elliot, despite the fact that Elliot physically threatened Nora earlier in the novel. She also finds out that a mysterious stalker is frightening Nora so her brilliant plan is not to talk to an employee at the store they're in for help, but to disguise herself as Nora, lead the stalker off into a graveyard, have Nora follow after, and between them confront a potentially armed and dangerous person. This, unsurprisingly, leads to Vee being concussed and having her arm broken. And immediately after she gets out of the hospital, she decides that they ought to go poking around and spy on the guy who they think attacked her to begin with.
- Nora also proves herself to fit this trope. A prime example would be when she is stranded in Portland and accepts a ride home from Patch, even though he chased her through a parking lot and scared her not so long ago. She then just stands there while he arranges for them to spend the night in a motel together, and apparently thinks she can hold off Patch (who has repeatedly proven to be stronger than her) if he tries anything. She later is point-blank told by Patch that he has planned to murder her and knows that he can influence her thoughts and feelings and still thinks it's a good idea to date him!!!
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Patch. That's usually the name for a black-and-white dog with a patch of differently colored fur around one one. Yet it's the male lead's name. He eventually reveals that Patch is merely a nickname and tells Nora his real one.
