Random Thoughts ltd. BOOK REVIEW
Book: Lover Eternal
Black Dagger Brotherhood Book Series
by J.R. Ward
Genre: Paranormal/ Fantasy/ Romance
Release: March '06
In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there's a deadly turf war raging between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other- six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Possessed by a deadly beast, Rhage is the most dangerous of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Book Discription:
Within the brotherhood. Rhage is the vampire with the strongest appetites. He's the best fighter, the quickest to act on his impulses, and the most varacious lover- for inside him burns a ferocious curse cast byy the Scribe Virgin. Owned by this dark side, Rhage fears the times when his inner dragon is unleashed, making him a danger to everyone around him.
Mary Luce, a survivor of many hardships is unwittingly thrown into the vampire world and reliant on Rhage's protection. With a llife- threatening curse of her own, Mary is not looking for love. She lost her faith in miracles years ago. But when Rhage's intense animal attraction turns into something more emotional, he knows that he must make Mary his alone. And while their enemies close in, Mary fights desperately to gain life eternal with the one she loves...
WORLD DISCRIPTION:
The Black Dagger Brotherhood series takes place in modern day New York in the city of Caldwell (
which actually does not exist). Underneath the regular everyday human world there is a secret ancient society of Vampires and Lessers (
hunters) whom have been battling each other for centuries, after taking in serious losses in the race the Vampire society decided to go underground, hiding themselves from all outer beings and civilizations. With the decreases in Vampires there has also been a decrease in Lessers (
since they have nothing to hunt). But the fighting continues as the lessers determination to rid the world of Vampires completely increases.
Where as folk lore allows us to believe that vampires are mystical creatures that were humans turned into evil soulless beings, the world of BDB introduces a new way to look at this popular culture. In this universe Vampires are merely a seperate species created by a mystical being called the Scribe Virgin (
thier Diety). They are born, they age (
slowly) and they die (
they are also able to mate with humans, although half breeds are rare). These Vampires do have some physical and mystical qualities to them. They are allergic to the sun (
they turn to ash if exposed) so they roam through the night, they can dematerialize (
they can vanish into thin air and appear elsewhere) as long as they are not trying to dematirialize in or out of an area incased with steel and they are not carrying something heavy. They do need to transfer blood for nourishment every couple of weeks (
proper blood transfers are done through biting a member of the opposite sex of their species, they can get blood from humans as well, however human blood is much too weak to properly feed and neurish a Vampire, also they try very hard to limit contact with all humans for fear of exposure and further hunting). This race of Vampires are very peaceful and have a lot of complexities involving their biology mainly when it comes to multiplying (
vampires cannot turn humans into other vampires) so due to this they are very few in numbers.
In many Vampire stories there are the evil vampire creatures and the human hunters. In this universe the creatures are the hunters known as the lessers. Lessers are humans turned and are primarly males. The Lessers were created by a mystical being called The Omega (
their Diety) for the sole purpose of extinguising Vampires from the world once and for all (
FYI: the Omega hates vamps and the Scribe Virgin for some reason we don't know yet). The Lessers have inhuman characteristics to them that makes them stand out. They are cold blooded because they have no heart (
this is because on their initiation they give up their mortality and their souls to the Omega, their hearts are kept in a jar for safe keeping, this also causes their blood to run black). After being in the society for a while their skin, eyes and hair start to pale (
older Lessers have white eyes, white skin and white hair) their skin also develops a distinguish smell of baby powder. Lessers cannot be killed easily, the only way to kill them is by sticking a knife or a dagger in their chest where their hearts are suppose to be until they POOF. Lessers are also impotent, angry and very muderist.
Summary and My take:
This is book two of the continuing series. Whereas book one DARK LOVER introduced us to the vampire world and the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, book two continues the story of the ongoing struggle this band of warriors face regularly to defend their species. Each book concentrates on perticular characters, we go more in depth on their natures as well as why things in their world are the way they are. In this book the two central characters are Rhage and Mary.
Rhage is known for being the best fighter of the entire race as well as having the most varacious love life. But what is inside him is a completely different story, Rhage is cursed with an inner beast, litteraly. Whenever he loses his cool or is too wound up the beast escapes and is a hazzard to everybody around him including those he cares about.
We learned a little about Rhage in book one, mainly about what kind of personality he has as well as what happens to him whenever he changes into a beast, but we actually get to see what he really thinks about his curse and his life through his point of view, which becomes heartbreaking knowing that he is always scared to death of hearting somebody because of his 'impulses'. I mean think about it, if you knew that everytime you get angry enough or horny enough your bones break and mode themselves to this giant dragon thing that starts eating everything it can get its jaws on until it is satisfied, I would be shitting my pants everytime I felt a little annoyed, but thats just me. The only thing that is able to keep him leveled is fighting and sex (which explains why he screws so many women) although his reputation is glorified he actually hates the fact that he has to do what he has to do in order to keep himself from changing. Rhage never wanted to be the 'sex legend' he has come to be, what he really wants is to find a good female and settle down. This totally breaks down the way the reader views him. But then along comes Mary Luce, who is fighting her own personal demons, Cancer.
Mary has lived a hard life, she lives alone and seragated from everybody else. She had to deal with losing her father at a young age as well as seeing her mother die due to cancer. Not only that she herself had spent time in the past battling and barely surviving lukemia, now she faces the battle again and is certain that this time she wont be so lucky. Mary has no faith in anything anymore ( neither would I if I was in her shoes) and wants no more drama or complications in her life or whats left of it. That is until she meets a young boy by the name of John Matthew who followed her home one night after leaving the suicide hotline she volunteers in.
Here is where we meet the rest of the supporting characters, John Matthew is one of them.
John Matthew is a mute and an orphan like Mary, he lives alone and in a ragady part of town, he has experianced hard times too just like Mary and met her by calling the suicide hotline one night. Mary warmly befriends the super skinny, starved and poor ass John, and soon then we meet Bella, Mary's incredibly beautiful next door neighbor and closest friend whom unknowest to Mary is a civilian vampire (non warrior, non oriented to the Scribe Virgin). Upon meeting John, Bella immidiately realizes he is a pre- transition vampire (vampire who has not gone through their change). Fearful that he may be in danger of not surviving his upcoming transition without some help she contacts the Black Dagger Brotherhood so they could help him somehow. Since Mary is the only one John trust and the only one who knows sign language (beacuse the hundred year old brothers never bothered to learn) Bella is told to bring Mary to the brotherhood mansion along with John so that they could meet him.
While in the mansion Rhage meets Mary, John meets Tohr and Bella meets Zsadist and Phury (but we wont go into that until later). When Rhage first meets Mary he is immidiately attracted to her for reasons he cannot really explain, even though he is discouraged by his brothers for going after her because she is human, he pursues her anyway. Thus starting their awkward relationship.
THE FOLLOWING BLUE TEXT IS FULL OF SPOILERS SO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.Mary is resistant to Rhages pursuits. Even though she is attracted to him, she knows she has no future ahead of her and doesnt want any complications that could have been avoidable. But Rhage is pursistant (he really really wants her) and continues after her even after being pushed away repeatedly. Meanwhile his brothers are telling him to forget about it and he was playing on dangerous grounds because she was a human. After finally talking her into going out with him Rhage decides that he has to erase himself from her memory for both their sakes (you think?). During their date Rhage and Mary get attacked by the Lessers and one of them ends up getting away with her purse and ID. Rhage has to explain to Mary what he is (cause she didnt know he was a vampire, or that vampires even existed) and why they were attacked. Terrified of him Mary starts to freak out about all the information being given to her, so Rhage ends up having to wipe her memory clean. Sadly enough.Feeling responsible for putting her safety in jeopardy Rhage decides to go with her to her place to make sure she is safe, he ends up spending the night and getting caught up by the sun, getting seriously burned up AND freaking Mary out again with his vampire stuff. Rhage ends up telling her the truth about everything and tells her that she needs to go back to the mansion with him if she wants to be kept safe, after some hesitation she agrees to go.So Mary goes with Rhage to the brothers mansion and starts to wonder what the fuck she is doing. She barely knows this guy and she goes with him. Not only that the brothers in the house are pissed off that Rhage brought a human to their territory AND he disobeyed orders to leave her alone. Rhage accepts full responsibility for her and claims her as his. Which surprises everybody because of his reputation with females. But something about Mary has Rhage all jonezin and stumbleing around over himself. Mary spends the next couple of days locked up in Rhages room for his fear that one of the brothers may upset or hurt her. In the meantime Rhage is all wanting to have sex with her really really badly but he keeps feeling that little buzz he gets whenever the dragon is about to come out whenever he is around her. So he keeps pushing back even after she gives in and now wants to have sex with him.This gets so bad it goes to the point where his beast is about to burst out at any minute, and because he is having trouble looking for a Lesser to beat the crap out of he HAS to have sex with someone who is not Mary, because she seems to trigger it. So unfortunately he goes and has sex with a random female. WTF?When he comes back home he tells Mary what he did so naturally she gets REALLY PISSED OFF with him (and who can blame her?) when she tries to run away and go back home, he stops her and tells her he is in love with her and cannot let her go. This pisses her off even more and she ends up BITING him and eventually the violence turns into lust and the two end up in the sack together.COMMENT: Okay so the hero ends up sleeping with someone else, who we actually never meet or really care about, but the logic behind it is that HE HAD TO DO IT, HE HATED DOING IT and HE REGRETS DOING IT. So for those of you out there who are like 'whaaaaaa????' If you really think about it, its not that bad. Besides, Rhage and Mary weren't really a couple, they were just two people who were attracted to each other, but didn't go that far.The next day they end up forgiving each other, Mary forgives Rhage for his thing and Rhage forgives Mary for biting and beating him up. But it is not over, Rhage has to face the consiquences of his disobediance to his brothers and is sent to be ripped up and beaten to a pulp as punishment. OUCH.So when he comes back Mary takes care of him and all the brotherhood fall in love with her, in a sister like way of course. And she is accepeted and welcomed into the house as Rhages mate.But remember, Mary is human, a human with cancer and Rhage is a Vampire with an inner beast that seems to want to come out whenever he is around her. So how is this going to work out? I am not going to give away the entire story because it will take away from the fun of it.BLUE SPOILERS END HEREIN THE MEANTIME:
We continue with little side stories along the way.
We have Butch, who has now moved in with the brotherhood and has become a part of the family in a way, he is roomates with Vichious and is feeling more at home with the vampires he lives with than anywhere else he has lived before. He is also obsessed with Marissa whom he meets in book one. And we get to see how that progresses.
We continue to see what is going on with Mr. X from the first book and we meet MR. O, a Lesser who is regretting his decision of joining the society. Mr. O is one of the sickest and most simpathetic villains I have seen in a long time. You feel for this guy somehow even though he is a crazy, violent, murdering Lesser. And quite frankly he is pretty cool. He also becomes VERY significant near the ending of the book and the entirety of the third book because of a certain lady vampire.
This brings me to Bella.
We get to see more of Bella, Mary's vampire neighbor and friend who is the one responsible for introducing Mary and John to the world of the vampires and brotherhood.
When Bella is with Mary and John at the mansion she has a run in with Zsadist. Thats right, hard ass, scary as hell, scarred, pierce, misunderstood Zsadist, whom scares the hell out of her but also facinates her to the point where she can't stop thinking about him and ends up writing his name countless of times in her journal.
MAJOR SPOILER: HIGHLIGHT TO READ.
Being Mary's friend Bella is invited to visit the household after Mary moves in with Rhage and she meets up with Zsadist again, who tries his damn hardest to stay the hell away from her and actually tries to incourage her to go to his twin brother Phury.But she is pursistant, she wants to reach out to Zsadist, even after being warned constantly about how dangerous he is to females. She goes after him and they have a ummm...... interesting....... moment together. But Zsadist just pushes her away again to the point where he threatens her. She agrees to not bother him anymore, but not before tugging at something inside him he cannot understand. One thing that wasn't mentioned before is Phury, Zsadist's celibate twin brother. Whom, unknowest to Bella is intrigued by her. His story will also be brought up in book three.Their story continues through the entirety of book three. But something happens by the end of this book that sets all the gears in motion.
and then theres John. He finds out that he is actually a vampire on his way to going into transition. John has lived a fucked up life and now he is told of what he really is and what is going to happen to him. John ends up befriending Tohr and eventually moves in with Tohr and Wellsie, Tohr's Shellan ( a Shellan is sort of like a wife, but much more intense). John will become a significant character as the books progress mainly because of events that happen in book one.
MAJOR SPOILER: HIGHLIGHT TO READ.
In the end of Dark Lover Darius is speaking to the Scribe Virgin about being reincarnated. She agrees to send him back as long as he gives her something of his. Like a voice box. John is mute... guessed it yet?John will also be amongst the first of young vampires to be recruited and trained to become warriors and soldiers of the vampire race. This is due to the plan Wrath set out to save the species after taking in the throne at the end of Dark Lover. John will get his own book eventually further down the series.
Back to Mary and Rhage.
Mary as a heroine is very strong and really likable. She is the perfect other half for what Rhage is, an energetic, easily excited hot head.
Rhage as a hero is very likable, even after his action. His dialouge is very witty and the chemistry between him, Mary and the brothers are fantastic.
MAry and Rhage's relationship is addorable and very well played. They are seriously into each other and the book represents this very well without getting cheesy. Which in many romances it tends to happen. No in this book the relationships are very stable, leveled and realistic. And it just breaks your heart. But I wont be mentioning anything about what happens in the end. You have to read it.
BUT I WILL MENTION THIS:
IT DOES HAVE A HAPPY ENDING EVERYBODY. JUST KEEP READING TO THE END.
I probably did a shit job at describing exactly how the storyline goes, but that is my take on it. Seriously YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK. It is very funny, the characters are fantastic and even though it is a romance/ paranormal thing, there is A LOT of action, adventure, SURPRISES and DRAMA.
The best thing of all is that it introduces readers to these FANTASTIC colorful characters I have never seen before in books. AND I READ A LOT OF BOOKS.
Lover Eternal also sets you up for the next book. Lover Awakened, which by far is my favorite book ever! And that is saying a lot coming from me.
RATING GUIDE:
Originality: 6, fantastic storylines.
Language: 5, very graphic and well paced.
Writing: 5, would give it more but I am a skeptic... OK 6. The WARDen is wonderful.
Romance: 5, has it's moments but still good. STEAMY.
Characters: 6+, best set of characters I have read in a very long time.
Action: 4, just enough action to get you going without it overdoing it.
Tear Jeker?: Definately, I never cry in books, but I was BAWLING. Have a tissue handy by the end.
Favorite Line: "we're going to need a shit load of steel".
Favorite Moment: At the party ;)
Most memorable moment: YOU DECIDE. WAY TOO MANY.
Biggest Shocker: Mr. O, you'll know what I mean.
Overall Rating: I give this book 5 stars out of 6 stars.
Stay Tuned. I will be reviewing Book 3. Lover Awakened shorty.
