Review: Gates of Rapture

by Caris Roane
Rating: 3/5

As a vampire and a warrior, Leto Distra is deadly. But after years of being forced to drink dying blood, he is now part beast—a wild savage thing lurking beneath the surface.  With war on the horizon, Leto is determined to help the Guardians of Ascension destroy the enemy who turned him into a monster. And there’s only one woman who can help him. Grace Albion is certain that she’s meant to be with Leto, but their future may be cut short by the impending battle. Now Grace must embrace her obsidian flame powers—and bind her powers with Leto’s—if they’re ever going to survive.  With the fate of the world at stake, they must tap into powers they never knew they had…and unlock their deepest passions.

This is the sixth and final book of the Guardians of Ascension series, with the story continuing later with The Darkening, which will be the second of the Dawn of Ascension spin-off novella series. This will be following on from Brink of Eternity.

Caris Roane has done it again. Going into Obsidian Flame, I was ready to hate Marguerite but I ended up loving her. However going into Gates of Rapture I was really, ready to hate Grace. In fact I think I did hate her a little. Now I can live with her. I don’t approve of her actions or the way she treated Leto in Obsidian Flame, yet now I can like her when I forget what she did, and when I realise that Leto forgave her.

At the end of Obsidian Flame, Grace can scent the breh-hedden with both Leto and Casimir. She chose to go with Casimir, despite all the things he’d done to help Greaves enslave Second Earth. This was not a good start, especially since both books made it very clear that Grace slept with Casimir. I had thought that the twin breh-hedden scents might mean that Patience, Grace’s missing twin sister would be Casimir’s breh, so that turn of events was pretty surprising, and unwanted to me. In Gates of Rapture, we start off with Leto’s POV and he’s been celibate the entire time Grace was missing, which just makes Grace and Casimir more insulting.

The Grace-Casimir subplot is solved with the magic of deus ex machina, because the moment Casimir stepped into one of Fourth Earth’s redemption pools they both lost the ability to scent “their” breh scents. This annoyed me on two levels; One, it was a cop out on actually having to redeem Casimir because the redemption baptismal pools did it for him. And two, it meant that Grace’s intuition was used to excuse anything Grace did to do with going to Fourth Earth. And the fact that Roane was trying to act like Grace’s betrayal was what she had to do annoyed me.

I finally got to the meat of the story and I managed to enjoy it. Since the middle and ending were good I couldn’t give this only 1 or 2 stars, but I’m still really aggravated by that beginning which I nearly DNF-ed at my most angry.

I liked Casimir in this book. I sort of forgave the redemption pools thing as he mentions that his motivation for going through it was actually his fear of dying. The way he acted was a great mix of good guy and remorse. He finds a breh (a real one this time) and he is really aware he has no idea how to be in a relationship, just to seduce. He also acts as a Guardian of Ascension to Leto, which is interesting in the way he goes about it.

This book brings to an end all the stuff about Greaves, and Endelle’s side wins. I don’t like that so much emphasis was placed on the Obsidian Flame triad. Not that I’m against how it played out, but it did sort of belittle how good the women of the first three books truly are as they didn’t do much, especially Parisa who was emphasised a lot as being special with her Royle wings.

I also really struggled with what Grace’s Obsidian Flame power is, and how it basically takes away the flaws that were holding her back from Mary Sue-dom. She can look into anyone’s soul and copy their abilities, and their experience with it; not just their magical abilities but personality traits and skills gained through practice as well, like strategy or sword-fighting. Nevertheless let’s not forgive Leto completely, he has his Gary Stu moments too. The horrible beast form that terrifies him is a Third Earth Warrior form and it just makes Grace lust for and love him more.

I’m actually kind of disappointed that this is how the series ended. While the immediate threat was dispatched in Greaves, there is still the awesome Endelle who deserves, far more so than some of the other characters *cough* Grace *cough* a HEA; and three Warriors of the Blood that we haven’t really met yet. I think you can see my disappointment, because I’m really struggling to find positive points to mention, because this really, more than any other the other Guardians of Ascension books is flawed.

If you’ve been following the series, read this. If not make your own judgement. I will be looking for The Darkening if only to hope that some of my favourite remaining characters get some pagetime.

Currently Listening: Dirty Little Secret – All American Rejects