outside the local cemetery, she pays a visit to the stranger in the hospital. The only thing he remembers of his past is seeing a name written on a headstone: that of Jim Heron—a fallen angel charged with rescuing souls from the seven deadly sins. Now, as Mels struggles to help this mysterious stranger rediscover himself, Heron himself returns to prepare for a battle between good and evil.
J.R. Ward is one of the queens of paranormal romance. Most paranormal romance fans, myself included, see her has an author that really sets the bar for the genre and pushes it to a new level of quality. So it’s a sad day when I don’t love one of her books. It’s happened only a few times and I’ve read nearly everything she’s written, but unfortunately Rapture is one of those times.
The Fallen Angels series is a semi-spinoff series from her famous Black Dagger Brotherhood books. Not really a spinoff where the characters are from the other series as well but really it just takes place in the same world, and even the same city of Caldwell. But where our favorite vampires are fighting the Lessers in BDB, in The Fallen Angels the angels are fighting an unseen war against demons for our very existence. The game revolves around the seven deadly sins and in this game of good vs evil, only one can come out on top and mean life or death to the human race as we know it.
The first couple of books in the series I really enjoyed. It’s very different from anything I’ve read; the concept is original and interesting. But in Rapture I just wasn’t feeling it. Matthius is in play again due to a very naughty cheating demon, but this time Jim is right there to help nudge him in the right direction, along with the help of a woman named Mels who quite literally stops Matthius dead in his tracks (by hitting him with her car that is).
The chemistry between Matthius and Mels was, to me, very lukewarm. I felt them connect on some level — perhaps friendship or the need they both had to not be alone — but I didn’t feel them erupt for each other. The circumstances in this book are different and the game has seemed to get even more dangerous thanks to Devina’s changing tactics, but I still expected more heat between them, more longing and need. But I just felt ‘meh’ the whole time. I really wasn’t all that concerned with where they ended up because neither of them really seemed all that concerned with ending up with each other. Sure they wanted to be together, but they weren’t burning for each other.
Probably the thing I enjoy most about these books though is not the paranormal romance at the forefront of the story, but the ever-continuing background story about Jim and his comrades. While they are angels, they also have some very human emotions and are struggling with different things at the moment, but fumbling through nonetheless. Adrian is going through an incredible loss in this book and I found his turmoil much more interesting to read about than Matthius and Mels lifeless romance. So I enjoyed the moments we got dedicated to Jim and/or Adrian, and I even enjoyed the interesting friendship that formed between them and Matthius.
Despite not feeling the love between the two lovebirds in this one I can’t deny that J.R. Ward is a very talented writer. Even with a book I didn’t get very attached to her top-notch writing is something I tend to take for granted between releases and I’m always happy to dive right back into the world(s) she creates. Her greatest strength, in my opinion, is discretely building characters up in the background of other stories until they gradually work their way to being some of the most well-rounded and best characters to read. I look forward to seeing what happens to Jim and Adrian in the next books and hopefully some more passionate love stories on the forefront to boot.
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