A wonderful, terrible new virus is stalking America: Angelism. It starts like the flu, turns your skin green, and ends...in wings. As the virus spreads, it creates both a new race of people who look like angels but certainly don't feel like them inside, and wing-free Pedestrians, who are left behind to wait and worry. And while the wing-inflicted play tag with the seagulls, the Peds grow envious, some even going for the jugular — either for harm's sake, or to contrive their own infection. In this new world, who will fly and who will falter?

In David Sosnowski's Rapture, Zander Wiles is the first victim of Angelism to go public. But his status as celebrity quickly turns to pariah; his experiences at the hands of his disapproving parents and a fickle media machine turn the world's first flesh-and-blood Angel into a bitter recluse. Alone and grounded, Zander doesn't understand that the first step to flying is throwing yourself at the ground...and missing. Zander's life is in utter eclipse until he meets bestselling Angel therapist Cassie O'Connor. Using skates and tough love, Cassie teaches Zander how to face, squarely and deeply, just what he is. Along the way, she also teaches him how to fly.

"Inventive first novel....[A] witty, clever, original debut. Sosnowski writes like — well, an angel." Kirkus Reviews

"The winged humans in David Sosnowski's wry, dry first novel are angels with attitude....[T]he witty, arch banter [the protagonists] engage in as their romance unfolds is one of the book's greatest delights." J. D. Biersdorfer, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] fanciful zeitgeist satire....Sosnowski's portrait of a separate 'race' of non-divine angels...is original and sometimes clever. But his prose is often shop-worn and his storyline soon grows [too] freighted with ideas..." Publishers Weekly

"Written with much wit and humor, this first novel accurately portrays the problems and prejudices faced by a new minority." Library Journal

A brilliant first novel by an award-winning short-story writer. A virus is sralking America, but instead of killing the sufferers, it makes them sprout wings. Thus, a new race is born — as is a new form of racism — Angelism. Written with a truly original and engaging style of magical realism, Rapture is a stunning and original debut.