Hello everyone!
Right back to the bookish section of my reviews, and I have to say I keep skipping over the reviews I have noted down in my little sheep notebook.
I mean, I'll GET to them. Eventually.
I hope.
But good books keep popping up all over the place! Which means I keep getting distracted and I keep trying to keep up, which is starting to show some wear and tear but I have to admit I'm also doing quite a good job. It pays off to be able to fall asleep reading a book, you definitely get through a lot of them in the evenings.
Anyway, I am right back into the vampire world with this one, because in December I was more than a little bit stoked to see that the new JR Ward book had been published!
I have a long-standing and abiding love for her and her Black Dagger Brotherhood series, so this spin-off was a no-brainer for me. More vampires? More Brothers? Count me the heck IN! Thank you very much.
So, without further ado, let's sink our teeth into Blood Vow.
Blood Vow is the second book in the Black Dagger Legacy series, the first being Blood Kiss. All links to the reviews and other blog posts I have previously done for any JR Ward work can, as per usual, be found at the bottom of this post. I think there should be quite a few of them by now, but what can I say? I can't help it. I just love these bad-ass vamps so much!
Anyway.
Blood Vow picks up almost directly where Blood Kiss and The Beast left off, which is with the solved murder of that aristocratic vampire, Allishon, by one of their own, Anslam, who also met his end, natch. In this one, however, we're following a different trainee: Axe.
Who literally gets axed (pun intended) when he meets Elise, Peyton's cousin, for the first time.
Now, Elise is an aristocrat and cousin to the murdered female, but she's also trying to get a doctorate in psychology so she can help the race with PTSD and the like after the traumatic Lesser attacks (Lessers, if we remember, are the undead guys who aren't zombies but smell like baby powder and go after the vamps). Her papa dearest, however, is staunchly against this, until he gets persuaded to allow her to go out into the human world and not end up a nun at home by hiring a bodyguard.
We're all looking at you, Axe.
What follows is an almost classic bodyguard/protegée love story and instant attraction and soulmates thing, only I was just slightly disappointed that Axe got tame so quickly since in the beginning, we see him in the same club Allishon had been a member of, which is very Fifty Shades of Grey.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not into that, personally. But I like my characters to not do a 180 so abruptly, I suppose.
Or maybe V just needs to remain the BDSM king? I'm down with that.
What also happens is a huge misunderstanding where Elise jumps to conclusions and dumps Axe even though he's bonded with her, but luckily Peyton and Novo (two other trainees who have the hots for one another and who weave in and out of the main storyline) intervene and do some explaining, which leaves Elise room to apologise and to move in with Axe since she booted her controlling father in his rich butt.
On the other side of the scale we have Rhage, Mary and Bitty, who are becoming a family when news breaks that Bitty's uncle has been found.
And, since he's blood related, it's his right to take the little girl with him.
You can imagine THAT drama, on top of having to rebreak the poor kid's bones so that they don't grow wrong during her transition, which also kicks Rhage into Beast mode and ... ends with Lassiter offering him a Snickers bar.
Ironically enough, it helps.
Lassiter is of course a pain in the ass throughout the book but also has some very poignant moments which just goes to show the books are gearing up to have him replace the Scribe Virgin. Which is kind of scary, since the guy ends up impaled on something in the chimney, dressed as Santa Claus, and can't get out.
That's who's going to run the world?
Well ... could be worse?
To wrap up: the uncle does in fact arrive, but Ruhn eventually decides to sign over parental rights to Mary and Rhage, and Bitty convinces him to move to Caldwell. Which is how he becomes Rhage's pseudo-son (he's actually incredibly young for a vampire anyway) and inherits the large entourage of Brothers who're going to keep an eye on him.
Also ... Saxton seems to have taken a shine to him.
It was only just one line, of the lawyer seeing the younger male and doing a double-take, so maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I kind of hope not. Saxton deserves a HEA. And I think he and Ruhn would definitely make a really cute couple!
In general, I loved this book, mostly because all those Brothers together are beyond hilarious, and the trainees seem to be going right down the same road. But there were a couple of things, like Novo suddenly disappearing during the trainee's first real-time hunting party (she did in fact make it there, but was never paired up with a Brother or anything ... editing mistake?), and I missed, namely, some more closure with Elise's father, and maybe some more elaboration on what those 'other sightings' were instead of Lessers.
Something's cooking, but that one sentence and no other mention just made me go 'bzuh?' inside my head.
I'll probably have to wait until The Chosen to figure it all out!
Also, does anyone else think the guy on the book cover looks like Jim Caviezel?
xx
*image not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment