Dark Lover

Author: J.R. Ward

Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Erotic Fiction

Rating: B

 Wrath is the King of the Vampires, known as the Blind King, but hasn't really embraced his title.  Then, one day his long time friend and brother in arms Darius asks Wrath to help his daughter, Beth, through her transition to vampire, shortly before being killed by a lesser - the vampires enemies.  Wrath then takes it upon him to help Beth, before slowly coming to realize that it is not enough to fight the lessers with his brothers, he must also lead his people.

There are a few things that should be noted here.  One is that while Dark Lover is not the best book in J.R. Ward's The Black Dagger Brotherhood series it is the one that opens us up to the world within which the series is set - and what an interesting world that is.  The second is that Ward's vampires here are really very different from other vampires, eliminating a lot of the things that really make them a threat to humans - and really removing them from the world of humans.  The third is that these books are to a degree formulaic and once you figure out the formula the ultimate ending to things becomes clear - not that you're not goign to be apprehensive and crying at some point before hand.

This book is fun.  The vampires are awesome, and really love how Ward goes back and forth between a number of different perspectives - telling the story of both the book's core relationship and things that are going on in the periphery.  I really liked the humans in this book too, although I was a bit disappointed to see that with the exception of Beth and Butch they disappear in the later books.  My favourite part, though, is that the vampires are just so different from any other vampires I've ever seen before. I love when I'm reading a fantasy book that seems to be inspired by other fantasy books but are also different and strike out on their own.  The problem that I have with some books is that their authors so clearly don't enjoy reading the genre in which they write, which is something that I never felt in Dark Lover.  It's a good, engrossing, quick read.  Perhaps a bit smutty or trashy, but still fun.