Passion

I came to Passion a little tired. I had read the first two Fallen books back in high school and remembered the basics. Luce Price, a girl who keeps dying and coming back. Daniel Grigori, the angel boy who loves her and loses her. A church school, weird shadows, a curse no one fully explains. When a friend lent me her copy of Passion, the 2011 Delacorte Press edition that runs 448 pages and sits as book 3 in the Fallen series, I thought I knew what I would get. More longing looks in hallways. More secrets. I did not expect a road trip through past lives. That idea hooked me fast, even if the ride got bumpy.

The setup is simple. At the end of the last book, Luce learned she can use Announcers, those dark smoky shapes that drift and mutter, to look back and even step back. Everyone told her not to. Daniel told her not to, with extra force. His fear made sense. Every time Luce has learned the truth in a past life, she has died young, often by fire, and Daniel has been left to mourn. But Luce is done being the girl who waits while angels argue about her. She wants to see for herself why she dies, what starts the curse, and whether she ever had a choice. So she steps through.

I read this over a rainy weekend with tea going cold. I liked the nerve of it. Luce finally acts instead of asking Daniel to explain again. She is still 17 in feeling, still quick to run, but she has a clear goal for once. Find out what happened across her lives. Break the pattern if she can. Daniel spends most of the book chasing her through time, trying to catch her before she changes something or gets killed. That chase gives the story its spine. Her looking forward by looking back, him trying to keep her safe without trapping her.

Luce steps into the Announcer

The book opens in the present with pressure building. Luce is with Daniel and his allies after the events at the school. There are angels on different sides, old grudges, talk of truces that may not hold. Daniel wants to keep Luce hidden and safe. He makes plans around her without asking enough. Luce feels it. She loves him but she hates being managed. The Announcers hum nearby, showing flashes of other times. She has already glimpsed pieces. A dress. A song. A face that is hers but older.

Bill shows up here, and I will keep his details loose because the book likes him shadowy on purpose. He presents as a small gargoyle companion, chatty and odd, who says he can help Luce travel. He offers rules in a joking tone. Do not touch too much. Do not announce who you are. Do not try to live the life, only watch. Get out before the death moment. He makes it sound like a school field trip with risks. Luce knows she should not trust a stranger who appears from stone, but he is the only one offering answers instead of warnings. So she takes his hand, in effect, and jumps.

Her first jump scares her. The Announcer feels cold and loud inside, full of whispers and half images. She lands in a past life with a jolt, in a body that is hers but dressed for another century. The language around her is different. The smells are different. Wood smoke, perfume, sweat, rain on stone. She has to play along fast to avoid notice. Bill coaches from the side, sometimes helpful, sometimes cruel in his jokes. He tells her to watch Daniel in each life, to see how he acts when he thinks no future version of Luce is watching. That advice shapes the whole book.

Daniel in the present realizes she is gone almost at once. His panic is immediate. He gathers help and starts after her. He cannot follow her exact path easily, because Announcer travel is unstable and Luce is new and erratic in how she jumps. He has to track echoes, ask old contacts, guess where she might go next based on lives they shared. This gives us two threads. Luce moving forward through her pasts, Daniel a step behind in the present and in echoes. I liked that structure more than I expected. It kept tension even when individual past scenes slowed.

Past lives with Daniel

Most of Passion lives in these revisits. Luce drops into a string of former selves across different countries and centuries. I am staying general about places on purpose, because the book moves fast and I do not want to mislabel a city or era. Think palaces and villages and port towns far apart in time. In each, she is a girl of about her age, often from a family with rules, often watched closely. And in each, there is a version of Daniel nearby. Sometimes he is open in his love. Sometimes he holds back because he knows what happens when they get close.

The pattern in each life rhymes. Luce meets Daniel, or meets him again after time apart. There is a spark that feels instant because their souls know each other. Friends or parents interfere. Duty or war or faith puts pressure on them. Luce starts to remember more than she should for that life, because the present Luce is inside watching. That bleed causes mistakes. She says something too modern. She stares too long. She asks about things she should not know. Bill hisses at her to stop. Daniel in that life notices something off and gets drawn closer, which is exactly the danger.

One early life shows them young and almost carefree. A festival or feast, music, stolen looks. Daniel is tender and funny, less weighed down than the present Daniel. Luce loves seeing him laugh like that. It fades fast when family plans close in. A later life shows them separated by rank and custom, meeting in gardens and side rooms. Letters passed through servants. A later life shows hardship, travel by ship or caravan, sickness in the air, choices about leaving home. The details change but the pull stays. They keep finding each other. They keep losing time.

Luce starts to test small changes. What if she avoids the dance where she died. What if she speaks sooner. What if she tells Daniel who she is. Bill warns her each time that meddling can crack things. He says the past does not like to be touched. He is right in the way warnings in such books are right, vague enough to scare, clear enough to ignore. Luce touches anyway. She cannot watch herself suffer and stay still. Those moments where she steps in, even in small ways, are the best in the book. Her heart overrides the plan. I understood that impulse completely, even when I groaned.

What I missed in these sections was a stronger sense of Luce herself in each life. The past girls can blur. One loves to draw. One loves to ride. One sings. But their voices sound close to present Luce, which makes sense for the curse but makes pages blend. After the fourth or fifth jump, I had to flip back to recall which customs belonged to which life. A friend who loves historical fiction may enjoy the costumes and food more than I did. I wanted sharper differences in how each Luce spoke and thought.

Bill and the rules of the curse

Bill carries a lot of the middle. He explains as they go, in bits. He talks about how angels fell and chose sides. He talks about how Daniel loved Luce before she was mortal in the usual way. He talks about a choice made long ago that set the curse running. A punishment, in effect. Luce lives, loves Daniel, remembers, dies. Daniel remains, mourns, waits for her to return as someone new. Repeat. Bill frames it as law as much as magic. Break the terms and the cost lands on Luce.

I liked Bill at first. He is funny in a mean way. He mocks Daniel, mocks Luce's crush, mocks angels who take themselves too seriously. He points out details Luce misses, like who is watching from a window or what a gift really means. He also pushes her to keep going when she wants to rest. Rest means thinking about death, he says in effect. Keep moving. That push feels kind until it starts to feel like use. Why does he care if she learns. What does he get. Luce asks late. He deflects. That delay bothered me in a good way. I started to watch him the way Daniel watches strangers around Luce.

The curse mechanics get clearer through his lessons, though never fully plain. Luce has to die before she can be with Daniel in any lasting way, or so Daniel believes. If she learns too much too fast, the death comes faster. Fire follows her in many lives. Sometimes it is an accident. Sometimes it follows anger or fear. Bill suggests the past Luces died because they reached for Daniel fully. Love triggers memory, memory triggers the end. Luce hates that logic. She keeps asking why love should be the trigger. Bill has no kind answer. He says old choices have long echoes. That line stuck with me, even as I wanted more detail.

There are quieter beats where Luce starts to see cracks in what Daniel told her. In some lives Daniel lies to protect her. In some he leaves to protect her, which hurts just as much. In one he watches from far off for years, thinking distance will save her, only to lose her anyway. She sees his grief up close in a way the present Daniel hides. That softened him for me. He is not only the stern boyfriend saying no. He is someone who has buried the same girl many times. Still, seeing his past kindness did not fix how flat he feels in present scenes. More on that later.

Bill's tone shifts as they near older lives. He gets less jokey. He urges Luce toward a first moment, a beginning life that might explain everything. He says if she sees the start, she can choose differently. Luce wants that. She is tired of symptoms. She wants the cause. I felt the pull too. The book does well making the origin feel reachable, like a door at the end of a hall. Whether Bill is leading her to truth or to a trap stays open for a long stretch. I guessed part of it before Luce did, but not all.

Daniel chasing her

While Luce jumps, Daniel hunts. These present-day interludes are shorter but needed. He works with allies from prior books, angels and others who have picked sides. They argue about whether to drag Luce out or let her learn. Some think forcing her back will break trust for good. Some think letting her run will kill her. Daniel hates both options. He chooses to follow, jumping when he can, missing her by hours or days in echo time. He finds places she just left. A warm seat. A moved curtain. A servant who remembers a strange girl asking odd questions.

Those near misses gave me the strongest ache in the book. Daniel sees traces of a happy Luce in pasts he remembers as grief. He remembers holding her as she died in a life Luce just visited. Now he stands in the echo of that room alone. Lauren Kate writes those beats with care. She does not overdo speeches. She lets him touch a doorway and go quiet. I believed his love more in these silent searches than in his long talks about destiny. Action suited him. Waiting did not.

He also fights. Other powers notice the travel. There are angels who want Luce stopped because her choices could shift old balances. There are shadows and lesser beings that cluster around Announcers when blood runs hot. Daniel has to cut through to keep her path open. The fights are brief and a little vague, all wings and light and speed. I did not always track who struck whom. I got the feeling more than the moves. Danger near, Daniel pushing through, cost paid. That was enough to keep pages turning, though readers who want clear battle lines may feel lost.

His flaws show here too. He keeps deciding for Luce. Even while chasing to respect her choice, he plans to pull her out the second he catches her. He tells allies she does not understand the risk, which is true and also unfair since no one explained fully before. He holds back key facts about the start of the curse because he fears what she will do with them. Each omission makes sense for a scared boy who has lived centuries. Each omission also keeps Luce running. I kept wanting to shake him and say, tell her plain. Trust her with the worst part.

A late chase scene lands well. Daniel finally gets close enough to speak to Luce across time, not face to face but near. He begs her to stop and come home. She refuses with tears. She says she cannot go back to not knowing. He says knowing may kill her. Both are right. That tie, where love pulls opposite ways, felt true to their whole series. I sat with that page for a minute. It reminded me of fights I have seen where both people speak from fear and call it care.

Present-day framing and what it costs

Outside the jumps, the present moves slowly on purpose. The group waits, argues, tracks. Luce's friend from school days is mostly absent, which makes the present feel thin. The focus stays on angels talking in rooms. I missed normal life here. School, parents, jokes that are not about doom. The first books had more of that texture. Passion trades it for travel. That trade pays in scope but costs warmth.

The book also holds back on big reveals to save them for the finale. We learn more about the curse, about first choices, about who sided with whom long ago. But full answers wait. That is fair for book 3 of a longer run, yet it means this volume can feel like a bridge. Luce grows in nerve and sight. Daniel grows in desperation. The world grows wider. The plot itself, though, is mostly move and witness, move and witness. If you need twists every fifty pages, you may tire. I did around the two thirds mark and had to put it down for a night.

What kept me coming back was the question of choice. Luce starts to wonder if the curse is only outside her or also inside her habits. Does she always reach too fast. Does she always trust the wrong guide when Daniel goes quiet. Does Daniel always pull away at the key hour thinking he protects her. Seeing repeats made her look at herself, not only at fate. That self look felt mature for a series often accused of being only swoons. I liked that Kate let Luce be angry at herself as well as at angels.

The last jumps raise stakes. Luce gets closer to a beginning time, to a life that feels older and stranger than the others. The air changes. People speak and dress in ways Bill struggles to joke about. Daniel feels her nearing something raw and pushes harder to reach her. Bill pushes harder too, but his push starts to feel like hunger. Luce senses it. She is tired, footsore in borrowed shoes, heartsore from watching herself die again and again. Yet she goes on because stopping now would mean all that grief taught nothing. I admired her stubbornness here even as I worried for her.

I will not spoil the final turn. It reframes Bill and sets up the last book. I saw part of it coming because his kindness never quite balanced his knowledge. The reveal still stung because Luce trusted him when no one else offered help. Daniel arrives in time for some truths but not for comfort. The book ends with Luce knowing more and feeling less safe, which is honest. Knowledge did not fix love. It made choices heavier. I closed it wanting the next book right away, which is probably the point.

What worked and what wore thin

What worked was the core idea and Luce's drive. A girl watching her own past deaths to find why love keeps ending is strong. The jumps gave variety. Clothes, food, music, rites, all changing while the two souls stay. When Kate slows down for a dance or a sickbed or a goodbye on a dock, the pages breathe. I pictured those scenes clearly. I also liked that Luce stops asking permission. After two books of being told to wait, she acts. Even when she acts poorly, she owns it more than before.

Bill worked as company. A guide who jokes through horror kept the tone from sinking. His lessons, scattered as they are, fill gaps the first books left. The Daniel chase worked in bursts. Silent rooms, missed meetings, a hand just late. Those images stayed with me more than speeches about forever.

What wore thin was repetition. Many past lives follow the same beats. Meet, spark, pressure, warning, loss. After a while I could feel the shape coming and leaned back instead of forward. The book tries to vary settings to hide the repeat, but hearts learn patterns fast. I started skimming festival scenes to reach the death point and the lesson. That is not how I want to read romance. I want to dread the end because I love the middle. Here I sometimes rushed the middle to confirm the end.

Daniel stays flat in too many present scenes. He is fear and wings and warnings. Past Daniels show humor and ease, which proves Kate can write him with color. Present Daniel rarely gets that ease. He lectures. He broods. He makes plans. Luce calls him on it once or twice, but the book lets him off by blaming centuries of grief. I wanted one present scene where they laugh like the past selves, to remind me why forever matters. Without it, the chase feels more about duty than joy.

The prose also leans on soft haze. Shadows, whispers, echoes, light through stone. Pretty at first, foggy after 300 pages. I lost track of how Announcers choose destinations and what limits travel besides will. Bill says rules, then bends them for plot. That looseness is common in middle series books, but I noticed. Readers who track magic systems may notice more.

Still, I am glad I read it. At 448 pages it is not short, yet I finished in three days because I needed to know if Luce would reach the start. The 2011 Delacorte Press edition I had felt right for the story, with its dark cover and heavy paper, built for rereads. Passion does its job as Fallen book 3. It deepens the curse, tests Luce and Daniel, and sets a harder road ahead. If you liked the first two for mood and want answers more than school scenes, pick this up. Bring patience for the middle repeats. Stay for Luce finding her nerve. I am rooting for her to get a choice that is truly hers, not one picked by angels long ago.