The Fallen series by Lauren Kate is a modern supernatural romance that’s not the waning vampire or wolf trend. Our hero instead is Daniel, immortal, gorgeous (aren’t they always?), a fallen Angel cursed (maybe? This part is less clear) to fall in love with the same soul as it is reincarnated each generation. The “curse” part is that as soon as the woman/soul thing either (a) kisses (b) confess love for or (c) discovers the true identity of Daniel, she’s destined to die really, really soon. Bummer.

We meet the woman/soul thingy in Book 1, Fallen, in which we discover the 17-year-old Luce has some curses of her own. Shadows haunt her, potential boyfriends die in suspicious fires, and she’s generally a bit of a mess. Not to worry -- it’s in Daniel’s Angel-y DNA to love her despite all her shortcomings, and he’s there to protect her as a mini battle of Good vs. Evil rages in response to Luce surviving the normal moment-of-doom kiss in their endlessly repeating relationship.

Book 2, Torment, begins precisely where its predecessor left off: the Angels have called a truce in their eternal battle, Luce has been whisked away to a secret location for her protection, and Daniel has some mysterious mission that he must complete with the help and partnership of his natural enemy and exact opposite, the demonic angel Cam.

Detecting any familiar formulas here? How ‘bout if I lay it out in point form:

♦  Lead female has brains, modesty and natural beauty, with just a whiff supernatural oddity about her, but beyond that her appeal is a bit of a mystery.

♦  The more-perfect-than-possible supernatural male lead is cranky upon her first appearance, but only because he swiftly and entirely falls in love with her against his will and better judgment.

♦  With very little time spent together and very little to go on but some gut feelings and beyond-unhealthy obsession, the girl falls equally as consumingly in love with the guy, and discovers which species of supernatural being he is.

♦  Love, love, love. Danger, danger, love.

♦  Book 2 sees them separate, and a more normal rival appears to tempt our gal, and show her what options she’d be presented with if only she could get the hell over her love of Mr Perfect.

♦  Girl kisses Rival Dude, while Mr Perfect cops a visual. He’s only fleetingly annoyed, but otherwise forgives her entirely because their love is bigger than that.

♦  Rival Guy and Mr Perfect are forced to put aside their differences for the greater good and work toward rescuing Girl, who gets herself into one bind after another.

If (and, inevitably, when) the Fallen novels are made into movies, we could well find a new Twilight Saga on our hands. Is the world ready for another onslaught? I don’t believe we need to panic yet: The Fallen series has juuust a hint of mediocrity about it that, I believe, will hold it back. Lauren Kate’s writing attempts to catch the poetry and eloquence that Stephanie Meyer (for all her shortcomings) captured beautifully, yet falls short. An example passage from Torment, where our heroine Luce finally embraces the shadows that have always followed her:

The past might have been unfathomable to her before, but she could feel it pressing up against the dark surfaces, waiting to break into the light. She closed her eyes and cupped her hands together. There, in the darkness, her heart pounding, she willed them to come out… She called on them to solve the mystery of who he was and why he had chosen her… even if the truth broke her heart.

See? That’s the paragraph you’d expect to find on the back cover of a cheap romance paperback, the kind with pirates and wenches on the cover art, the kind that cost $4.95 to buy and the prolific authors pump out ten books per year. Torment (and Fallen) are better than that, though not as good as the Twilight books. Is that a fair comparison?

I feel I’m being harsh -- Torment was indeed a good book, and some of the romantic moments shared between Daniel and Luce really melted my heart. But I couldn’t follow Luce’s motivations -- she rebels for the sake of it, ignoring the warnings of the people protecting her, and caps off the whole thing with one supremely dumb and out of character move that serves no purpose but to create a need for a third book (Passion, due out mid-2011). She also picks fights with Daniel, allows the advances of Rival Guy Miles, and is blind to the obvious smoking-gun of a guy who dates Luce’s roommate only to ask constant questions about Luce (Warning! Enemy!)… There are more plot devices that stood out to me as super obvious, but maybe that’s because I’m older (and therefore smarter) than the target reader.

I think the final judgment of how good a book it is, is to pose this question to all readers: Will you read the third book when it comes out? Yeah, I will. I’m hooked enough -- not on Luce as a leading lady, but on Daniel as a sexy and superpowered leading man. I’ll come back again and again to the Fallen series for him, and entertain myself in the meantime dreaming up sexy casting choices for his movie debut.

  -- Cathy Thomson