Rapture by Lauren Kate

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

The sky is dark with wings. . . . In RAPTURE, the highly anticipated fourth and final novel in the FALLEN series, Luce and Daniel are together . . . but for how long? Can history be rewritten? Or are some punishments eternal?

My thoughts:
When I started reading this book I didn't realize it was the last book in the series.  You can sense though that something has changed just from the cover.  On all the other books the girl on the cover is wearing a black dress, but this time she is in white.  Many changes are at hand.  Luce and Daniel have returned through the Announcer but now they and the other six fallen angels and demons only have nine days to find the three relics and the site of the fall to rescue all the angels who were sucked into an announcer when Lucifer went back to the fall and caught them in the sky.  If they are allowed to complete their nine day fall, history will be rewritten and they will no longer be who they are today and where they are today.  Using the book Daniel wrote years ago that Gabbe had published, which Luce found in the Sword and Cross Library in the first book and showed her in another lifetime on the first page, the group breaks into three groups going to the three places where they believe the relics are held.  Along the way they meet up with the Outcasts and form an alliance with them.

Luce and Daniel go to find the halo in Venice.  Arriane, Annabel and Roland go to Vienna looking for the something called the desired thing which no one is clear about only that it is in a library.  Meanwhile Cam, Gabbe and Molly go to Avignon looking for a chalice.  Each of these items is said to be inscribed with the history of the angels and their fall and, if put together in the right place and the right circumstances, will tell them where they fell.  Along the way they appreciate the help of the Outcasts, have to fight off the Scale who are angels who stayed with the Throne and think highly of themselves while being ruthless in their pursuit of justice, and also run in with the trans eternal elders again.  None of the missions go smoothly, help is needed from all and great losses occur.

While on this journey  Luce keeps getting flashes from the past.  She can remember previous lifetimes unassisted and keeps circling closer and closer to the reason for the curse and the reason why the angels and demons are all there to help her and Daniel on this quest, but it stays out of reach for a very long time.  I was relieved when the truth came out, when she faced it and when the consequences and reactions to all that had happened played out in the present.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780385739184
• Publisher: Random House Children's Books
• Publication date: 6/12/2012
• Pages: 464
• Sales rank: 964
• Age range: 12 - 17 Years
• Series:Lauren Kate's Fallen Series , #4