I finally have finished The Lady of Rapture and The Bones of Ruin trilogy. This truly unique historical fiction meets fantasy story is a must read. This latest sequel, and series ender, is about change. Keep reading this book review of The Lady of Rapture for my full thoughts.
Summary
For years, the elite secret society called the Enlightenment Committee has waited for the apocalyptic force known as Hiva to destroy the world as it has so many times before. What the Committee didn’t know, however, was that Hiva wasn’t an event—it was a person.
Iris Marlow. An African tightrope dancer with no memories of her past. A girl who cannot die.
At least, she couldn’t die. Until her own friends discovered her one weakness and murdered her once and for all. The world-ending threat she posed should be gone too, but there’s one more Hiva out there, and unlike Iris, this one has no love for humanity. In her absence, this Hiva has taken it upon himself to judge if humanity deserves to live.
But when it comes to Hivas, the judgment is always the same. The ending is always total destruction. And while Iris is dead, she’s not gone—and after the betrayal that ended her life as Iris, she is now out for revenge.
The world’s days are numbered. The Cataclysm has begun.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
The Lady of Rapture is the epitome of the lyric “all my enemies started off friends”. For Iris, and the other characters in The Bones of Ruin universe, they think they’ve avoided the end of the world, only to find out they might have replaced what they knew, what was familiar, with something else entirely. They thought they avoided the end of the world, but they might have sped it along instead. This series ender very much begins by asking us if we have lost everything, who cares if the world ends? It asks us whether humanity is even worth saving.
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To dare takes courage.
The Lady of Rapture begins to asks us whether the monster we know is better than the one we don’t. It’s a book full of double crossing, betrayal, hostage situations with our heart, and pressure points. We all have our own vision of the world, of the future, but how do we know which is best? Which we can trust? Jumping between continents and people, motivations and betrayal, I wasn’t sure how Raughley was going to pull of this monumental series ender. Yet The Lady of Rapture asks us whether we want to continue the cycle of revenge and violence. How do we escape this doomed loop? It takes the strength, the bravery, to imagine something different. To know we can’t give up on it.
Find The Lady of Rapture on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.