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Stars: 3 / 5
Recommendation: The Black Dagger Brotherhood and the vampires certainly creates a universe that keeps you on the edge. Complex plot weaving and anticipation of future books keeps the reader immersed. This story is very intense and hard to give proper justice to my review. We see more of the main characters as well as the repeat characters that leads me to believe we will see more books in the series in future.
Lover Awakened is the third book in the long running Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J. R. Ward. The series deals with Vampires and Humans, trying to co-exist and at the same time fight the evils in both species. The first book Dark Lover introduces us to the key members of the Brotherhood along with Humans who would follow in the subsequent books. This book was published in September 2006.
Wrath is also the Blind King of the Vampire Species apart from being the leader of the Brotherhood and he is mated to a half-breed, Beth Randall. Females who mate to a vampire are called Shellan, while the men are called Hellren. The remaining Brotherhood we see are – Rhage (his shellan Mary Luce), Tohrment “Tohr” (Official leader of the Brotherhood since Wrath ascended the throne, expecting his first child), Vishous “V”, Phury (Celibate and has an artificial leg) and Zsadis (Phury’s twin, “Z”, abducted from his family and sold into slavery for 100 or so years before being saved). They work together to destroy the lessers (de-souled human whose sole purpose is to kill the Vampires as a member of Lessening Society) who have been slowly working to exterminate the vampires. So far J. R. Ward has written 23 book in this series before she did a spin-off called Black Dagger Legacy. Also we are introduced to the human, Butch O’Neal, the Homicide Detective, a human, in the first book and becomes best friend of the brotherhood, who is attracted to Marissa, a vampire. And also to the Scribe Virgin (a mystical force counselling kings and keeper of vampire archives).
The story revolves around Zadist “Z” and Bella. A cliff hanger in the previous book Love Eternal we see where Bella gets abducted. Now in this book, Z saves her from the lesser, kills many lessers in the process and falls for Bella. His anger and terror for his compassion keeps her at bay. But Bella is attracted to him. Will their love supersede his thirst for vengeance save them or will Z go to the brink of madness in that love? Bella must help to reach him and mend his wounds. But will Z allow? This tale takes place in December.
I expected Z and Bella’s story sometime in future, but considering the previous book was left in a cliffhanger, it is appropriate to have their story first. But since his past his hard and he is the most-tortured of the brotherhood, the author does not make te readers wait to hear his story. We come across repeating characters from the previous books. Naturally we see about them. Butch is still in love with Marissa. Marissa loves him but rejects him in the first book.
Phury also puts his life in risk, when he knows that his twin Z is sacrificing himself to save the kidnapped Sarelle, cousin of Wellsie. He is also in love with Bella, and we see the jealous-side of him and the sacrifices he makes too. Cant wait for his book to surface. We also see that Bella is with child of Z at the end of this book. But in the epilogue we see that she has given birth to a female child.
The author has some good and tense moments between Z and Bella, the catches reader’s heart. The flasbacks that Z has about this past, about his kidnap when he was seven months old, about his life in slavery, becoming blood/sec slave and enduring that for a century until he was rescued by Phury, all of that is a little disturbing. However, it tells a lot about them. Definitely not easy to read.
We know more about John Matthew in this book like others. And his blood tells that he is the line of Darius of Marklon, the fallen brother from book #1, and pleases Tohr a lot as Darius was his best friend.
The author shows multiple plots within the story and also writes each plot in multiple POVs. This leads to new characters as John and Bella get added to the existing characters. Obviously we will see more future books centering on the new characters also.
The romance that J. R. Ward spins between Z and Bella iss very romantic and erotic, all spun into one tale. Yet, it bothered me that the characters get attracted to each -other just because they are mated to each other. There are other series’ by Christine Feehan (Dark Series, Leopard Series, Shadow Series, etc.) that follow similar plot. It bothered me there as well, but I read those series. Same goes with this series as well.
I liked that the characters that are paired with the brotherhood are equally strong. They have to be to face the brotherhood. They are not meek and whiny that would have been a turn-off. The brotherhoods’ constat teasing and comments to each other add the much -needed humor to the otherwise serious series.
J.R. Ward thanks Sue Grafton, the author of the Alphabet series (A series I have to read from E yet.), as one of the Executive Committee member. She mentioned in her blog that Sue had mentored her. Sue passed away in 2017.
The unique names of the vampires threw me off a bit considering the violent nature of the words. But again, they are brutes of large size and violent only to those who cause harm or threaten their species. Perhaps the names suite them.
There is a glossary of all the Terms and Proper Nouns used in the series at the beginning of each book. Intriguing names such as The Scribe Virgin, The Lessening Society, the Omega, Mr. X, etc.
A few things that I did not appreciate much. The way the females end up having sex with the mates male vampire from the brotherhood even though they hadn’t known the guys, just because nature had made them true mates and they could not do anything but sleep with him. The thought of Marissa being so ruthlessly pushed to become Wrath’s
shellen even though she was not the true one – makes me think how little women meant to them. The idea that a man can have as many as shellans he want at the same time, the very notion made me feel a slight disgrace to womenfolk. May be this flaws might get repaired in future books.
The Black Dagger Brotherhood and the vampires certainly creates a universe that keeps you on the edge. Complex plot weaving and anticipation of future books keeps the reader immersed. This story is very intense and hard to give proper justice to my review. We see more of the main characters as well as the repeat characters that leads me to believe we will see more books in the series in future.
Spoiler Alerts:
- Grammatical / Character / Plot / Geographical / Historical / Mythological Errors:
- On Pg. 24, we see that Bella’s family sold her house thinking she is dead although Z wanted to buy. But on Pg.26, we see that Bella’s family does not want sell the house anytime sooner. Which is true?
- Plot Reveals:
- Reverend, a vampire owns the club ZeroSum. He is the brother of Bella aka Rehvenge “Rehv”. He anonymously runs the club and Bella is unaware of this. He is at least half-sympath and hides it from his aristocracy, glymera. However he know about the Brotherhood as his sister is shellan to Z, one of the members of brotherhood. He provides feed to Marissa but not sleep with her. He seems impotent. He also needs dopamine to keep him seeing everything in red, but it numbs other senses as well.
- John Matthew has feelings for the vampire Sarelle, a cousin of Wellsie. Tohr and Wellsie adopt him in book #2. He is approx 21 yrs old and when he goes thru transition. But, in this book both Sarelle and Wellsie get killed. Tohr disappears and no one knows where he went and Wellsie’s body’s journey to Fade is put on hold until Tohr is found.
- V temporarily loses the ability to see visions of the future of a person. But he makes Butch drink his blood in the guise of wine to save Butch. And this brings his visions back.
- We see that after bonding with Bella, his eyes turn back to yellow just like his twin, although they go back to black when his angry or in fighting stance.
- Sub Plots:
- From Love Eternal (#2):
- Havers, a physician to vampires is introduced in this book.
- Vishous runs the security and monitoring systems The Brotherhood. He can vision the future of a person.
- Wrath and Mary Luce have a cat named Boo.
- From Love Eternal (#2):
Galavant Reflections 