Whomever Luce is, she’s apparently important enough to both the angels and the demons that they declare a truce in order to protect her. Daniel and Cam arrange for her to be hidden at a special school on the California coast: a school which boasts both angels and demons as teachers, not to mention a group of Nephilim students. Each of the Nephilim possesses special talents; as Luce develops friendships among them, she discovers a talent of her own. She uses this talent to seek knowledge about her past lives but comes across details which shake her to the core. Despite their undeniable love, Luce finds herself questioning whether she and Daniel should be together.

I am disappointed that so many questions are still unanswered–for over a book now, I’ve been wondering about the strange relationship between the angels and demons and I was hoping that Torment would reveal more than it did. We know that both groups of fallen angels value free will; we know that both groups believe that a choice Luce makes will sway the outcome of the battle between them; we know that there’s at least one other group of fallen angels to worry about. As we learn most of this early on, it feels like Torment is stringing us along (tormentedly, of course!). *I’m still perplexed at Fallen‘s ending–Luce made a choice which led to A battle but it didn’t turn out to be THE battle. Apparently once the two sides wore out some of their frustration, they determined that they needed to allow Luce time to develop???? I don’t mind Luce being in the dark as much as I mind me being in the dark.

That said, Luce does learn more about the shadows that have haunted her ever since she can remember and she does ask herself good questions about her relationship with Daniel–so there is progress in the story, just not as much as I had hoped.

Still looking forward to the next book, due out next summer.