Passion - A Fallen Novel By Lauren Kate

Passion is a 2011 young adult fantasy novel from the Fallen series written by Lauren Kate. Passion, the sequel to Torment, continues the story of Lucinda Price (Luce) who, at the end of the previous book, decides to find out more about her past lives by stepping through an Announcer, ignoring Daniel's plea to stop. Daniel, Luce's boyfriend and fallen angel, decides to follow her, promising to find and rescue her. Before Luce and Daniel met at Sword and Cross, before they fought the Immortals, they had already lived many lives. And so Luce, desperate to unlock the curse that condemns their love, must revisit her past incarnations in order to understand her fate. Each century, each life, holds a different clue. But Daniel is chasing her throughout the centuries before she has a chance to rewrite history.


From the book

"A shot rang out. A broad gate banged open. A pounding of horses’ hooves echoed around the track like a massive clap of thunder.
“And they’re off!”
Sophia Bliss adjusted the wide brim of her feathered hat. It was a muted shade of mauve, twenty-seven inches in diameter, with a dropdown
chiffon veil. Large enough to make her look like a proper horseracing enthusiast, not so gaudy as to attract undue attention.
Three hats had been special-ordered from the same milliner in Hilton Head for the race that day. One—a butter-yellow bonnet—capped
the snow-white head of Lyrica Crisp, who was sitting to the left of Miss Sophia, enjoying a corned beef sandwich. The other—a sea-foamgreen
felt hat with a fat polka-dotted satin ribbon—crowned the jet-black mane of Vivina Sole, who sat looking deceptively demure with her
white-gloved hands crossed over her lap to Miss Sophia’s right.
“Glorious day for a race,” Lyrica said. At 136 years old, she was the youngest of the Elders of Zhsmaelim. She wiped a dot of mustard from
the corner of her mouth. “Can you believe it’s my first time at the tracks?”
“Shhh,” Sophia hissed. Lyrica was such a twit. Today was not about horses at all, but rather a clandestine meeting of great minds. So what
if the other great minds didn’t happen to have shown up yet? They would be here. At this perfectly neutral location set forth in the gold
letterpress invitation Sophia had received from an unknown sender. The others would be here to reveal themselves and come up with a plan
of attack together. Any minute now. She hoped.
“Lovely day, lovely sport,” Vivina said dryly. “Pity our horse in this race doesn’t run in easy circles like these 􀀿llies. Isn’t it, Sophia? Tough
to wager where the thoroughbred Lucinda will finish.”
“I said shhh,” Sophia whispered. “Bite your cavalier tongue. There are spies everywhere.”
“You’re paranoid,” Vivina said, drawing a high giggle from Lyrica.
“I’m what’s left,” Sophia said.
There used to be so many more—twenty-four Elders at the peak of the Zhsmaelim. A cluster of mortals, immortals, and a few transeternals,
like Sophia herself. An axis of knowledge and passion and faith with a single uniting goal: to restore the world to its prelapsarian state, that
brief, glorious moment before the angels’ Fall. For better or for worse.
It was written, plain as day, in the code they’d drawn up together and had each signed: For better or for worse.
Because really, it could go either way.
Every coin had two sides. Heads and tails. Light and dark. Good and—
Well, the fact that the other Elders hadn’t prepared themselves for both options was not Sophia’s fault. It was, however, her cross to bear
when one by one they sent in notices of their withdrawal. Your purposes grow too dark. Or: The organization’s standards have fallen. Or: The
Elders have strayed too far from the original code. The 􀀿rst 􀁅urry of letters arrived, predictably, within a week after the incident with the girl
Pennyweather. They couldn’t abide it, they’d claimed, the death of one small insigni􀀿cant child. One careless moment with a dagger and
suddenly the Elders were running scared, all of them fearing the wrath of the Scale.
Cowards.
Sophia did not fear the Scale. Their charge was to parole the fallen, not the righteous. Groundling angels such as Roland Sparks and
Arriane Alter. As long as one did not defect from Heaven, one was free to sway a little. Desperate times practically begged for it. Sophia had
nearly gone cross-eyed reading the spongy-hearted excuses of the other Elders. But even if she had wanted the defectors back—which she had
not—there was nothing to be done.
Sophia Bliss—the school librarian who had only ever served as secretary on the Zhsmaelim board—was now the highest-ranking official
among the Elders. There were just twelve of them left. And nine could not be trusted.
So that left the three of them here today in their enormous pastel hats, placing phony bets at the track. And waiting. It was pathetic, the
depths to which they’d sunk."


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