Possesion or Hot Conflicted Angelic Hero Totally Overshadows Supposed Main Plot

Possession (Fallen Angels #5) by J.R. Ward – Paranormal Romance – Spoilers ahead!

The conceit of the Fallen Angels series is that seven souls are at crossroads, heaven and hell are vying for each soul and whoever gets best of seven gets to take over the world.

Jim Heron, the hero of the series, has just traded a win in the aforementioned divine contest to get Sissy Barton out of hell. Cait Douglass, the heroine of the book, is trying to get out there and live life, energized by the death of her art student, Sissy Barton. So now Jim has Sissy and is desperately trying to tell himself and his boner that he’s all altruism. Cait rather suddenly has her choice of two hot but slightly off putting men.

Jim’s story is now far more compelling than the intra-book plot. Cait’s story is interesting and relatable. I think most of us have had to choose between two unknown but seemingly desirable options. The identity of her partner in Happily Ever After is obscured for quite a while. Obscured for even longer is who the soul in play in this round is. Which is a reflection of the fact that Jim has completely lost the plot and is so focused on “caring” for Sissy (e.g. convincing his boner to chill the fuck out) that he completely forgets to be the savior of the universe. Jerk. There is quite a shocking event at the end of the book that I didn’t think made much sense, but I’ll trust Ward to know where she is going with it.

Ward is a reliable writer. Her men are forceful and her women are too.  But she is getting a little too reliable these days. I’m a little pissed off that out of the five books and four souls so far, not one has been a woman. She has been giving us conflicted, glorious damaged male protagonists for a while and now I want a woman who could tip in the wrong direction, rather than women being what brings men back to the light side. That being said, the main antagonist of the series is a woman and she’s awfully evil.

I am hoping that the effort of keeping two series going at once (Black Dagger Brotherhood and Fallen Angels) does not cause either to be diluted.

-fh