Dark Lover by J.R. Ward
Series Name: Black Dagger Brotherhood
Volume Number: 1
Genres: Contemporary, Erotica, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Urban, Vampires
Intended Age Group: Adult
Publisher: Signet Eclipse/Penguin Group (USA)
Edition: Paperback
ISBN: 0-451-21695-4
Rating: 3.5/5
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Description from the Book
In the Shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly turf war going on between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Yet none of them relishes killing their enemies more than Wrath, the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood…
The only purebred vampire left on the planet, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who murdered his parents centuries ago. But when one of his most trusted fighters is killed – orphaning a half-breed daughter unaware of her heritage or her fate – Wrath must usher the beautiful female into the world of the undead…
Racked by a restlessness in her body that wasn’t there before, Beth Randall is helpless against the dangerously sexy man who comes to her at night with shadows in his eyes. His tales of brotherhood and blood frighten her. But his touch ignites a dawning hunger that threatens to consume them both…
Personal & Info
The blog does not line up well with my reading of this series. I was a ways into it before I even started thinking about making a blog. At the time I’m typing this, I’m ten books in, and actively reading the series. However, I feel like I should include the series in my reviews, so I’m going to try to go back and look at my pitiful notes and muddle my way through to get caught up.
I’d heard this series was good, but I never went out of my way to buy it. That is, until I found a deal on getting the first several volumes cheap. I jumped on the opportunity, and I don’t regret it. With this in mind, you can be sure the editions I have, for at least the first few, are likely outdated. I don’t think you can even find this edition in stores anymore. If you go looking for this book, you’ll find an updated cover that looks nothing like this one.
Content Warnings
I’m not sure how important content warnings are. I know they’re important to some people, and others don’t care. There are a few things in this book that might raise some flags for certain types of people. I’m not used to covering content warnings, but I’ll do my best for this. Remember, I haven’t read this in about a year, so I might forget or miss some. Anyway, here they are: attempted rape, sexual themes, violence, and kidnapping.
Characters
Beth and Wrath are the main characters here, obviously. I remember I like Beth. Wrath did a few things that could be considered creepy. I think Tohr was also significant. He was the only one Wrath trusted to keep an eye on Beth, because Tohr is already married. If you like dominant and possessive men, this is definitely for you.
Some of the other brothers, if not all (I can’t remember), were introduced. I’m almost positive it was all of them. Their names couldn’t possibly be any “edgier.” They’re so edgy it’s comical. Here are their names: Wrath, Tohrment, Rhage, Vishous, Zsadist, and Phury. I got used to it after a while. Most of them use abbreviations, so that helps.
There’s a loose cannon cop named Butch, always a good trope.
Mr. X is the villain of the story, and by villain I mean the right hand man of the guy who is the real villain, but we don’t exactly see the real villain much. His perspective gives us insight into how the slayers, or Lessers, as they are called, operate.
Story & Thoughts
Story-wise, I think the book started a bit slow. There were, maybe, 4-8 different perspectives for converging events, so there was a lot of ground for plot and lore to cover before things got good. To try to name some of the perspectives, I think they were Beth, Wrath, Marissa, Mr. X, Butch, Havers, and José de la Cruz. If there were more, I can’t remember, and I don’t care enough to check the book more thoroughly. If you get confused by books that have multiple perspectives being swapped all the time, this might not be for you. I personally like books that tell stories that way. I don’t know why, I just do, so it didn’t bother me. However, in regards to the pacing and plot prep and everything, I wasn’t expecting two thirds of the book to go by before Beth’s transition.
There are plenty of sexy bits in the story. Most of the time they contribute to the story or character development in some way. That’s why it’s considered erotica. To be an erotica, the sexual parts of a story have to be important to the plot. They definitely are for this, even if some of them weren’t exactly the most natural or reasonable implementations (refer to what I said about Wrath doing a few things that can be considered creepy).
I have to say, this book was also memorable because of the writing. There were typos, but there are bound to be typos in any book, especially early editions, like I think this one was. Some of the word choices though, were odd. I don’t have any examples off hand, but some of the slang is very dated. Maybe it wasn’t at the time this was published, I’m not sure. The slang was definitely dated enough to be cringe-worthy. I couldn’t help giggling while I read.
Something else to know, there’s a glossary in the front of the book. Ward created words for the Vampire language that will be frequently used. They’re easy enough to remember, but if you forget, it’s there to refresh your memory. Some words are similar to the English language, that’s intentional. I can’t remember if it’s in this book or another, but they clarify why that is.