Hello everyone!
Or, alternately, finishing the series to begin with.
I know, I know, BLASPHEMY.
Dishonor.
All that jazz.
Unfortunately, however, once the series sort of stopped being as interconnected as it used to be - I think the author switched publishers and they focused on the newer books being more standalones than grouped together - my interest dropped.
I do have plans to finish, since I'm curious to read about the new generation we only meet as babies initially, but for right now, I think it best if we go right back to the beginning, true?
After all, what can an end mean if you don't know how it all started?
Without further ado, Dark Lover.
Links to previous related posts can be found at the bottom of the page, as per usual! Also, there's a fair few of them, you have been warned.
In the shadows of Caldwell, NY, a war is about to ramp up. And we're here to see how it does.
The Blind King, aka Wrath, son of Wrath, leader of the race of vampires no human has a clue about (and who don't feed off humans, thank you very much, they get their sustenance from their own race, opposite genders and whatnot), meets up with a fellow member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. This Brotherhood is a group of specially-bred fighters who protect the race from Lessers, a society of humans who trade their heart and soul to a being called the Omega, thus becoming immortal (and start smelling like baby powder) and hunting down vampires while they're at it.
Anyway, Darius has a favour to ask of his king - not that said king wants to ascend, come to think of it, but I digress. His half-breed daughter, Beth, is about to hit her transition, and her odds of surviving are MUCH greater if Wrath gives her his pure blood.
Wrath nopes out faster than a speeding bullet, but by the end of the evening, Darius is dead via car bomb, the Lessening Society has taken a HUGE win, and the Brotherhood is on a rampage.
And also, now Wrath OWES his fallen brother, so he goes to introduce himself to Beth.
Beth Randall is a journalist who almost gets raped on her way home one night, and homicide detective Butch O'Neal tracks down who did it so that the boys in blue can make his life miserable, since they all like her.
But Beth's been feeling off, and after a nightmare about a huge ass, 6 foot 7 monster in leather that supposedly entered her apartment (spoiler alert ...), she really thinks she's losing it. Then Wrath reappears (yup, that's the spoiler), with some calming cigar, and all she can think about is climbing him like a tree.
Listen ... back in the day, books were as easy as their readers, true.
Convinced that he was sent by Butch to protect her, Beth is all giddy about seeing him again until she mentions him to Butch and her cop buddy is like ... uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
A little investigation and no solid proof later, and Beth is now afraid enough to not want to have anything to do with Wrath anymore.
Wrath, in the meantime, is pissed off by just about everyone and everything, but at least the Brothers are getting SOME stuff done while they're at it, even while his personal life is starting to veer off track.
He gets himself arrested - by Butch, of course - and easily frees himself, then tells Beth all the symptoms she's been having, all the things she doesn't know, and oh by the way her dad sent him, so she tags along with him when he takes her to Darius' place. There, the servant, Fitz, is literally shocked speechless since he's known her all her life, of course, and Beth gets the shock of HERS when Wrath explains just who and what she is.
Does she believe him? No.
But when her transition hits and Butch has nowhere else to take her but to Wrath - thinking that she's on withdrawals - she has no choice BUT to believe anymore, and besides, she and Wrath have gotten TIGHT tight since their initial beginnings, and she doesn't let him just walk all over her, either.
There's only one problem.
Her name's Marissa, and she's Wrath's mated shellan, aka the wife that his parents chose for him.
Well, Wrath heads in for a meeting with the race's deity, the Scribe Virgin who birthed them all, and asks for a divorce, is the best way of putting it, and after letting him grovel some she agrees, on one condition: he has to take up his throne and rule.
Urgh, says Wrath, FINE. If I really have to.
With that out of the way - and the minor fact that Marissa's brother, the race's top physician, Havers, tried to hire another Brotherhood member to take Wrath out, so he's now blacklisted - they can proceed with the actual mating ceremony, where Beth meets Wellsie, the only other female in this group who's been mated to one of the warriors for eons (and listen, I AM STILL SALTY. Literally everyone can come back from the dead except Wellsie ... poor Tohr).
But if you think it's happily ever after, think again.
Because while Butch is now goggly eyed over Marissa - and she's pretty intrigued by him, too - Beth discovers that being Queen ain't all it's cut out to be when she gets abducted literally almost right after the wedding.
By the Lessening Society, because Havers talked and let it slip what they COULD do.
Hell hath no fury, because as it's during the daytime, only Butch can lay the groundwork for Wrath to unleash total destruction by nightfall, and the Lesser who orchestrated everything is frothing at the mouth at how wonderful this all is, until Wrath starts tearing everything and everyone apart.
Unfortunately, he gets hit by a bullet for his troubles, and Beth nearly loses him because her blood isn't strong enough yet to revive him, so Marissa offers to feed him instead. Our stubborn vampire recovers, tells the Brotherhood he's stepping down as a fighter but stepping up as a king, and that they'll be moving in together to really reorganize and get the gears moving.
So, all's well that ends well, as they say, as they all swear to protect Wrath and Beth forever, having waited for Wrath's ascension ... forever.
And it's all just the beginning, bby!
Now a steamy series airing on Passionflix (the first season handles this first book), Dark Lover is an electrifying and smoochy first installment in what basically launched J. R. Ward into the book stratosphere, and she's been living on those clouds ever since. While it can occasionally feel insta-everything, we do get to know the main characters, the point of the Brotherhood, see a charted map of what's to come, and get immersed in this paranormal world the author built.
I mean, eventually the Brotherhood expands from the original five brothers to ... a veritable army. So.
All in all, this is the kind of book that would never fly today because people have grown so sensitive about the silliest things, but it's a joy to read and I highly recommend it. There's a bunch of combative personalities running around on-page, but there's equally a lot of romance, equality, and enlightening moments.
I still love it just as much as I originally did. I can't wait to finish watching the full season!
10/10 recommend.
xx
*image not mine
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