Manly Musings: Love triangles and power struggles on 'Power'

Welcome back to my blog corner, Manly Musings! I'm Shakir Rashaan, and I'm a male erotic romance and mystery author for Strebor Books/Simon & Schuster and a regular contributor to the Happy Ever After blog!

Join me every other Friday as I give you a MANLY perspective of some of the hottest shows and movies that are upcoming or already out! With this edition, I jump back into the television world as I give you a MAN's perspective of a series that I highly recommend that you get into with the man in your life: Power.

Let's begin, shall we?

If you haven't had the chance to see Power, or you didn't get the chance to catch it last season, you missed out on one of Starz's biggest summer hits! Drama. Suspense. A damaged, conflicted Alpha male and a love triangle that pits a current love against a long-lost love, vying for the attention of the Alpha male. All set against the backdrop of the streets of New York City.

From the outset, we were introduced to Jamie St. Claire, businessman. He has the hottest up-and-coming nightclub in the city, Truth, with business looking like it's getting better by the night, and he has the love of a beautiful wife, Tasha, and his three kids.

But that's only one side of the coin.

The other side brings his other persona, Ghost, the most successful drug kingpin in New York City. He's at the top of the food chain, with the potential to take things to cartel-like levels, with the whisper of his name bringing respect from his foot soldiers and lieutenants and fear from his adversaries.

Two vastly different worlds … double the risk if those worlds collide.

The problem with Jamie is simple: He's seen his future, and he no longer wants that future.

As he mentioned to his wife when he tried to get her on board with going legit, "I don't know any old, wrinkled drug dealers. They're either dead or inside." Truth, as he sees it, is his ticket out of the drug business, but his wife has known him only as a drug kingpin, and Tasha doesn't want to change. She wants to be the wife of the best drug dealer that New York has ever known.

Enter the proverbial manifestation of what that better life represents: former girlfriend Angie, who happens to come to Jamie's club, a blast from the past who manages to turn Jamie's world upside down in a matter of minutes. All of a sudden, he sees how he can change his future and recapture what could have been with Angie, reconciling with the fact that he is no longer in love with Tasha.

Only one problem: He doesn't know what she does for a living, and she doesn't know about his double life.

That, of course, doesn't stop the fire from rekindling, beginning an affair that would have Jamie fast-tracking his plans to leave the drug world, only it wouldn't be with his wife … it would be with Angie.

Angie, having realized that she was denying herself all these years by trying to stay away from her first love, now wants to find out if they can still have their happy ever after … except, as an assistant U.S. attorney, she's on a case that could make her career: the apprehension of notorious drug cartel boss Lobos and his major distributor in the New York area, Ghost. No one has yet to see Ghost's face, and she's insistent on making her career bust by any means necessary, not realizing that Ghost is, in fact, the man she's fallen in love with all over again.

How about that for a complicated love triangle?

Going into season two, the questions remain: Will Jamie and Angie be able to get the happily ever after they've been denied? Will Tasha be able to win her husband back, despite his insistence on leaving the drug game?

I plan to give you a week-by-week recap, right here on HEA, of each episode of this continuing drama every Monday after the show airs, giving you the updates with what happens with Jamie, Tasha and Angie, and the other subplots that make this show one of the hottest of the summer. I can't wait!

Shakir Rashaan lives in suburban Atlanta with his wife and two children. His catalog includes the Nubian Underworld series and the upcoming Kink, P.I. Series. He is also developing projects under the pen name P.K. Rashaan. You can see more of him at www.ShakirRashaan.com or you can connect with him on Facebook and Twitter (@shakirrashaan).