Dark Lover A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

Nothing like an early 2000s vampire romance. None of it made sense yet I was everything I could’ve asked for

There is nothing good about this book. The story is a badly written, smut filled “romance” with an asshole hero and a heroine who makes women look like idiots who can’t control themselves around men. My biggest issue is with the Brotherhood itself. The vampires in this book are big, listen to rap, and dress tough, but their names are really dumb. Why are they adding letters to their names to give them vampire street credibility? Vampires have their own traditions, customs, and language. Their names, however, read like those of pre-teen goth girls picking names for their future children. There is even one human, but it has an uninteresting name: Butch. Despite the amount of explicit sex in these books, they do not feel very erotic. There was an extremely unlikely love-at-first-sight experience in the book followed by smut. Unlikable characters lead to no emotional investment in their fate. My honest opinion of this book is that I have read far better fan fiction online. Still baffled by everyone else’s glowing reviews. Dark Lover features terrible writing, clichéd romance, and male characters with teenage-girl speaking styles. For fans of trashy romance books, this is perfect, but for those who enjoy horror and fantasy, skip this nauseating, sophomoric read.

So this is way more of an adult book than a teen/young adult book. It's really fun and fast paced and the storyline is SO GOOD. Plus, you don't have to try and keep up with the plot, because Ward does it for you, subtly recapping everything every now and then. The switching of character focuses by the omniscient narrator helps keep you updated as well as keeping you reading because of the cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. Not to mention the hot vampire sexual tension going on throughout the whole book and entire storyline. I'd read it again but I don't see myself keeping up with the series because I have a feeling I'd get exhausted after the next two or three. THIS ONE IS DEFINITELY WORTH THE FIVE STARS THOUGH!

1 Star **My #5 worst read of 2018** *This review contains spoilers and discussion of sexual content.* Dark Lover was lent to me by an acquaintance with a slightly sketchy recommendation along the lines of “if you like reading then you’re going to LOVE this!” It didn’t sound appealing, but I didn’t want to be rude. I did manage to talk her into only giving me the first two books; she initially tried to loan me the first five. (Because for some baffling reason, she was totally convinced I was going to fangirl over this series.) I tried. After procrastinating for months, I finally read book one. I felt bad about keeping the books so long, so I bit the bullet… and spent the next three days wishing someone would put a bullet in me. Or in this book. Dark Lover is terrible. Jumping Jehoshaphat, it is so mind-bogglingly atrocious! Just thinking about it makes me what to groan in frustration. The red flags started from the very beginning. The book starts with a glossary (which is a good thing. More authors should put the glossaries in the front). But a lot of the terms defined in the glossary made my eyes bug out of my head with how blatantly sexist this book and its characters and its world-building clearly were. Female vampires are pretty much good for food and sex. Male vampires can have multiple females, but females cannot have multiple mates because the males are too territorial and will kill each other. Females go into heat when it’s time for them to breed at which point any male vampire will basically be unable to resist screwing them (possibly even if they’re related). Yeah, if you take out the word “vampire” this sounds more like a bad nature documentary than a romance novel. So alarm bells immediately rang in my head. I should have heeded them, but I didn’t. This is the story of a group of vampire warriors. The leader asks his right hand man, Wrath, to help his half-human daughter transition into vampirehood. Wrath agrees, but he doesn’t want to because he is a prejudiced, misogynistic asshole. This leads to such lovely quotes such as “As far as he was concerned, there were only two good positions for a human. A female on her back. And a male facedown and not breathing.” The book has an awful lot of prejudice against humans or anyone with human ancestry. Phrases like “half breed” and “impure blood” get thrown around a lot. And it definitely wasn’t in some make a point about racial prejudice way. The story repeatedly reinforces that anyone with human blood will always be weaker than pureblood vampires. Anyway, back to the wretch of a “hero” of the story. If you turned Conan the Barbarian into a vampire, you would get Wrath. He basically has two modes – kill or screw – and he was an awful character. The young (read: barely an adult) half human / half vampire woman that he is supposed to mentor is named Beth. Beth is gorgeous. She attracts all men. Young or old, they are all sexually obsessed with her. She is also supposedly an intelligent news reporter, but she displays all the intelligence of a potato. Beth is like the most useless version of Lois Lane. She spends most of her time doing other people’s work because she is a complete pushover. Though of course she makes all kinds of excuses for how “that’s just the way it is” and how men rule the business, etc. Also, once Lois-Beth meets Conan the Vampire, all of her career aspirations go out the window. Cuz bowchickabowwow. *Cue caveman vampire porno music. This review is about to get spoileriffic, and they won’t be hidden! You have been warned. One night Beth is walking home from work and gets attacked by two men. They rip her clothes, sexually assault her, and almost rape her. In the only surprise of the book, Beth manages to escape on her own. (I definitely thought that was going to be the moment Wrath swooped in and saved the day.) For a moment I thought there might be hope for this book. But no. After barely escaping, Beth goes home, destroys the evidence, avoids telling anyone, and proceeds to blame herself for the whole incident. She actually says that maybe if she gained weight, she wouldn’t sexually attract violent men. This is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read!!!!! You don’t deserve to be attacked because of being pretty or thin. And being overweight doesn’t protect you from being assaulted either. J.R. Ward managed to explosively victim blame and fat shame at the same time. It was utterly disgusting. This book deserves no more than one star for that alone. Not that the rest of the book was any better. You see, the night after being assaulted and nearly raped, Wrath breaks into Beth’s apartment. They are so magnetically attracted to each other, that they immediately, literally rip each other’s clothes off and have violent, unprotected sex even though she has no idea who he is. I can suspend my belief about vampires, but I cannot EVER believe that a woman who was sexually assaulted less than twenty-four hours before would have sex with a complete stranger who broke into her home! HOW IS THAT OK?? How does this book have such high ratings? The sex scenes aren’t even good! Wrath is the wham-bam-thank-you-mam type who doesn’t believe in foreplay and goes straight in for the finale. And even in kinky sex, I don’t EVER want to read the word “violently.” It’s not sexy in any context. EVER. The sex is so abrupt and over so quickly that there is no sexual tension. It was just… not sexy. At all. Dark Lover probably has the most extreme instalust I have ever read. Their sexual magnetism is so intense it takes away consent. It also makes Beth forget safe sex. She later finds out that vampires can’t get STDs, and she can’t get pregnant unless she is in heat. But Wrath doesn’t bother to tell her that until after they have had intercourse multiple times and is condescending about the whole thing. I read some of Christine Feehan’s Dark series a while back. That definitely had some overly controlling males in those books had nothing on this series. Combine that with Twilight and double the toxicity and it might get you somewhere in the ballpark of Dark Lover. Oh, and carving someone’s name into your skin is NOT sexy. Wrath is a total jackass!!! He is egotistical, emotionally stunted, violent, and overpoweringly horny. Despite him being brutal and manipulative, Beth follows the horrible troupe of “he won’t hurt me because he loves me” even though there is no evidence to back up that assumption. Actually Wrath is partially mated to another woman and treats her like dirt. Of course, this leads to an awful sort of love triangle. Beth and Wrath don’t know each other at all; their “relationship” is entirely sexual. And they never get to know each other. They just somehow hyper-jump from uncontrollable sexual urges to instalove. It’s overdramatic and angsty. The other characters keep talking about how strong and fierce and brave Beth is, but she isn’t. She is a useless piece of fluff. The other characters talk ad nauseum about how gorgeous she is. But she is little more than a pretty sex doll. Once she meets Wrath, she completely forgets her career and even abandons her cat for a while. She completely forgets the poor thing exists for a while. Aside from the falderal of the violent vampire porno, a lot of time sent on the sub plot about a crazy vampire-killing cult. At least it was ok at first, because at least it was a break from the noxious vampire sexathon. But it was pretty repetitive. It more than established that the cult was psychotic. Aside from that, the story was clearly setting up side characters to their own books. Too bad they have such stupid names like Tohrment, Vishous, Rhage, Phury, and Zsadist. Seriously. Oh, and the fight scenes were extremely lame. The whole thing was a monumental mess. The only remotely positive thing I can say is that it is easy to read. I spite of being painful to read, I still managed to finish it in three days. But I am definitely returning Lover Eternal to its owner without reading it. I never want to read another word of this series. I don’t care if people say it gets better. I’m not putting myself through any more of this drivel. RATING FACTORS: Ease of Reading: 2 Stars Writing Style: 1 Star Characters and Character Development: 1 Star Plot Structure and Development: 1 Star Level of Captivation: 1 Star Originality: 1 Star

Mr. X and the whole lessers thing is kinda boring but I like the Brotherhood. Twilight but without the wolf nonsense and whatever. (view spoiler)[I wanna know what the hell is gonna happen with Darius. Coming back? What?(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

Tried really hard to like it, because I'm into this kind of thing...but it was scattered, confusing, and just got too silly for me.

reread: 3.5 This time I'll check out the rest, too. For sure

This book has been in my to-read list for forever and now that I finally got to read it I wasn't disappointed. I only regret that I didn't read it sooner. Also those warriors are hot as hell. The only minus parts were Mr. X's POV which I hated. He is just so disgusting somehow but I lived when I read more about Beth and Wrath and now I can't wait to read the other books.

*3.5

Decent. Different take on the vampire genre.

I read the first 10 of these when I was in college, and they’ve been on my mind lately. Now seemed like a good time to revisit the series. Is it high quality literature? No. But it sure is fun. I love Ward’s take on vampires. The names and terms might be cheesy, and I’ve definitely been known to roll my eyes while reading them, but this is the kind of series that I think back on fondly. I blew through this first one in a day, and I’m eager to read more. Literary comfort food.

This whole series is amazing. Honestly, it was so different and very interesting to read Ward's words because they're not like the normal vampire books. The book opens up with some of the brotherhood in a club, and we're basically just seeing their P.O.V and mind set. Pretty much that's when I realized this wasn't going to be a fluffy twilight type of vampire story. There has explicit scenes, swearing and gore. This is not a book for children that is for sure. Each book in the series is following the story of a different brother's P.O.V and plot. So being the first book, it follows the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Wrath. After his most trusted friend and follower dies, he grants the one wish he had, find his half-breed daughter and protect her. This is when Beth comes in. A seemingly normal 25 year old women who works a middle class job. She automatically gets called, being the friend and reporter for the police, to the crime scene where her unknown father was murdered. This is when Wrath first sees Beth, and from there it's just hectic. I did not realize how much sex was going to be in this novel. Lets just say Wrath is a .... hell of a dude... Anyways, Beth and Wrath have an immediate connection and slowly she becomes apart of her father's world and starts falling for the big intimidating leader. The way the vampires work in this story is that they can eat food just like normal people, but need blood to survive and stay strong, and that blood has to be from a vampire. There are a lot of character introductions in this book and it's a bit hectic trying to remember them, I will admit. But Ward's writing style was so easy to read and follow that it definitely helped with the remembering of the names. If you're into vampire-erotica type of novels with lots of action, fighting and character development then this is the book and series for you! I did thoroughly enjoy this book but I wouldn't say it's my favourite in the series. Just to keep that in mind, if you do read this and want to read on there are better books in the series. J.R. Ward's book, Dark Lover, was a great introduction to the Black Dagger Brotherhood series anyways, no matter which book was better. IF you liked this review, check out more on my blog where I review YA and other genres! http://keepcalmandloveboooks.blogspot.ca

NEW FAVORITE!!! This was so so so ADDICTING!!! I couldn’t put it down, I fell so in love with this world and I am dying to read the rest of the series!!

Disclaimer: I am currently being held hostage by a PNR-loving troll. I therefore cannot be held responsible for the contents of this review. Do you seriously think I'd give a Freaking PNR Novel a 5-star rating of my own free will? *eyeroll* AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! IT HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I JUST GAVE FIVE FREAKING STARS TO A FREAKING PNR NOVEL!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Note to self: breathe Sarah, breathe. Okay. I can do this. My life will never be the same but I can do this. The fucking PNR gods are with me. I am invincible. I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky (view spoiler)[sorry, that wasn't me speaking, that was the alcohol I've been consuming to accept this new PNR-loving persona of mine (hide spoiler)]. It's official people!!!!!! Hell just froze over!!!!!! It's official people!!!!!! The end of the world is near!!!!!! ←okay Sarah, better tone it down with the exclamation points (view spoiler)[this is me talking to myself, in case you were wondering (hide spoiler)]. You lost enough friends as it is when you gave this book a 5-star rating, do you want to lose more? No? Right. That's what I thought. Good girl. Okay, I need to calm down. You have to admit, though, this is such breakthrough for me! No wonder I have such a hard time dealing with it! I'm the PNR HATER around here! I think of Pack Challenge, The Warlord Wants Forever, Pleasure Unbound, The Bloodline War (I could list them all but I don't have all day) and I want to murder their authors someone! OMG. Something just occurred to me. Does my loving liking this book mean I'm human after all? Oh, no. This is it. I'm doomed. Oh well. Worse things have happened. I guess. Then again, maybe not? Do YOU know? I don't. Well not right now anyway. Maybe tomorrow (view spoiler)[Oops, I think the alcohol is speaking again (hide spoiler)]. Note to self: focus Sarah, focus. Okay, I can totally do this. I am brave and fearless. More or less. So. This is PNR. Which means the expression "suspend disbelief" takes a whole new dimension here. Think of it as "suspend disbelief" to the power of 100. No. Wait just one second here. We're not going anywhere here. You thought we were? Guess I fooled you then. HA. Anyway, I was going to tell you why I loved liked this but I think I'll just tell you why I shouldn't have loved liked it instead. It will be much faster. You're welcome. ① Ridiculous character names. I mean, seriously? Wrath? Vishous? Rhage? Phury? Tohrment? Yummy Zsadist? Am I the only one thinking of the seven dwarves here? I am? Never mind. ② Suspend Disbelief to the Power of 100, example #1: What girl in her right mind would have unprotected sex with a super hot thug-looking, deliciously mysterious unknown bastard who breaks into her apartment in the middle of the night?! Please Sarah, do try and refrain from raising your hand here, some of your dear friends wouldn't understand. ③ Suspend Disbelief to the Power of 100, example #2: Wrath: "Nice to meet you Beth, you are half-human half-vampire. Fangs growing in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, NOW!" Beth: "oh okay. No biggie. Can we have sex first?" Me: "Hey Beth, what did you do today?" Beth: "Oh, you know, same old, same old: went to work, stopped to get Chinese food on the way home, had my first orgasms ever with a total stranger met a delightful gentleman, grew some fangs." Me: "damn Beth, don't you ever get bored?! No offense girl, but you really need to get a life." ④ INSTA-FISHING-LOVE. Need I say more? Didn't think so. Oh wait. Maybe I do. Need to say more, I mean. Because there's insta-love and there's insta-get-married. Wow. These people don't fool around, do they? Well they do but –hey! Will you take your mind off the gutter for just 5 seconds?! Damn. I meant fooling around, not [quote unquote] fooling around. This is PNR. We're talking about PURE, BEAUTIFUL LOVE here. Not physical, you know, stuff – EW, EW, EW. You people are GROSS. ⑤ Lovey-dovey crap to the maxxxx. It surrounds me! It's everywhere! It's like a bacterial infection! I can't fight it! Someone please call 911! Too late, I think I just died. I'm seeing fluffy bunnies and pastel-colored rainbows everywhere. This is the END. ⑥ Wrath is nothing but a sick love puppy in a lethal bastard's clothing. A decaf asshole, if you will. A big, cosy teddy bear in leather pants. With throwing stars. And daggers (obviously). And guns. And stuff. But still a little too diet for my taste. Now MY Z is something else altogether. Please don't get excited girls, I already did the Bam! Poof! Gone! on him and he's safely stashed away in my high security harem. So don't waste time getting all hormonal on me. His ass is MINE. I repeat. His ass is MINE. Yes, I'm talking to Z, not to you, silly girls *eyeroll* (Ange seems to think Vishous is hers. Hahaha. She's so funny. Slightly delusional, but very funny nonetheless.) ⑦ HEA. HEA? HEA?????? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! Go away, go away! Please tell me HEA means Horribly Ever After!!!! Please!!! OMG OMG I need my pills now! Where are they?! Someone please give me my pills NOW!!! Phew, that was a close one! A huge thank you to whoever passed me the pills. I'll be eternally full of grate. And the moral of this review is: ① + ② + ③ + ④ + ⑤ + ⑥ + ⑦ = BLOODY HELL. I LOVED IT ALL. This. Freaking. Book. ► It's PNR. ► It's not STOOPID. ► It's not RAPEY. ► It doesn't promote DEMEANING behaviour towards women. ► It's a BLOODY SHRIMPING MIRACLE. • Book 2: Lover Eternal ★★ • Book 3: Lover Awakened ★★ [Pre-review nonsense] BLOODY. FISHING. HELL. Take all the lovey-dovey crap away and I'm giving this 8 stars. And this is bloody PNR. And I don't even like bloody vampires. Damn. BDB WTF!!

I lost brain cells reading this

It took me awhile to get into it, but it did seem to grab my attention later. Sometimes the first book in a series is a little slower. Besides, it could have just been getting used to the lingo that is specific to the world in this book, but that was part of what made it so interesting.

The first book is always the first love. A good book to relax, to laugh, to cry.

Éste libro es uno de esos que he postergado muchas, muchas veces. Primero porque era una saga un tanto larga, y no me gusta comenzar una saga para dejarla luego a medias, también porque es una saga de la que, casi, todo el mundo habla bien, se generan pasiones alrededor de él y el temor de llevarme un chasco está siempre presenta cuando tiene tan buena crítica. Por suerte no fue así, es un libro bastante bueno, fácil de leer y sin complicaciones grandes, debo confesar que al principio me asuste con la introducción, con el glosario... uff mi memoria es bastante pobre, pero es bastante sencillo acostumbrarse a los términos. ¿Me leeré el segundo o no me leeré el segundo? jajajjaja Creo qué si

Time on my hands so a re-read of this amazing series was in order! Kicking off the series is Wrath. Wrath may be the king and the sole surviving pureblood Vampire but that does not make him invulnerable. He may be very hard to kill but he is hiding a big secret - his blindness! He has an "arrangement" for a blood supply from a female vampire but there is zero attraction on his side. Enter Beth. She has no idea that things that go bump in the night even exist. So her introduction to the Brotherhood is now easy or seamless. Wary of her attraction to a king who doesn't want to be king, Beth finds it easy to latch onto his feeding arrangement to try and keep herself from falling for him. But they are tied in a way that neither imagined and hiding from each other is not going to last! Lots of world-building, character introduction, and the camaraderie between the brotherhood is oh so human! Beth is no damsel in distress, even when she is out of her depth - I love a feisty heroine!

No. Just no.

First off, I do not recommend the audio book. The narrator is a man, and for sexual assault scenes that really pissed me off. Also, he does not distinguish his voice enough between all of the male characters so it is incredibly confusing. The ebook on the otherhand was much better, and I actually started to like the story when I switched to that format. Overall, the book feels a little outdated at this point, but I still enjoyed it. I liked the multiple perspectives, but I did not like the perspective of the bad guy Mr. X. I think the story would be fine without his perspective honestly, but I can acknowledge that it does add to the story a bit. My favorite part of the entire book was how the main character reacts to the vampire showing his fangs because she thinks he's trying to be kinky, and I think that is literally the best most realistic reaction that I could ever imagine. It was truly hilarious.

A really good start to what I hope will be an amazing series.

This book was more than I was hoping for! J.R. Ward you have exceeded my expectation with character depth and development. I am enthralled with the various brothers including Wrath himself. I especially love their names and how well it fits into the characterization and provides a scare tactic. Rhage- beautiful exterior but filled with a demon that once transformed was grotesque. Ironic and creative? I think so. I've created a specific beauty for him in my head thanks to you. Vishous- oh so precious. His ability to have the most humanist mannerism without being the most humble entertainment. He was a man's man. Baseball cap, lover of sports and chum talker. His character was very vivid as well appearance wise. Darius- Oh so electic. He was the only brother without a menacing name and yet he was Black Dagger member. Out of all of the brothers he had the most wisdom and was cultured. I loved your attention to detail with this character although he was not present. We see a glimpse into who he was as a man by the description of his artifacts and his reverence from the brothers. Tohrment- By far one of the more heartwarming character. Besides Darius he was the only one that you were unable to understand his affiliation with such "evil". Love flowed through him freely. His connection to Wrath and Wellsie made you see him as a man rather than a creature. Wrath- how can I count the ways of adoration for this character? A Blind king? Who would have ever thought. Power never lies in a the hands of a cripple no matter what his pedigree is. Mind still boggled around this. && his burden of having innate power but not wielding it or wanting it was not over done. Nor was his instant predictable love interest. Phury- A man who bears more weight than Wrath for he has to be moral for two people. He and his brother. My heart goes out to this man who carries the weight and guilt of two. He is truly a good man but we see very little of him. Zsadist- the most intriguing one of all. Every loves the dark mysterious bad boy. I hate him and love him all at the same time. The underlining of him being a sick man who loves to hear women scream in fear does push me a bit but of course there is more to the story. I enjoy not knowing that makes him a ticking time bomb. Plus the name Z is awesome. In addition to the character I ponder over the deep dark controversial issues that are placed on the table to evoke emotion. Rape, misognism (not a word), domestic violence, morality all taboo topics placed in one book. What else could you do to stimulate the mind for soul searching? I love how the series plans to give everyone their fair shot a story. I just hope I get to see more of Wrath and Beth in the series cause their story is still so important. (with them being royalty and all).

DNF. This book was way too long, I didn't care about any of the characters and the audiobook narrator was driving me nuts! He kept gasping for air between sentences. It made me feel like I couldn't breathe while I was listening to him. Maybe I'd try this again in physical form someday, but for now? No, thank you.