Kelly's Review: LOVER UNBOUND and Topic Thursday #2

Let's do my review first. After you read that, you may hate me and not want to read any further about my topic. We'll see how brave you are. So grab a cup o' joe and hang in there with me.

LOVER UNBOUND
By J. R. Ward

Book 5 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood Series

New American Library a division of Penguin Group / 375 Hudson Street / New York, NY 10014

First Printing: October, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-451-22235-0

Amazon; Barnes and Noble; Goodreads

Concept: “In Caldwell, New York, war rages between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Now the cold heart of a cunning predator will be warmed against its will…

Ruthless and brilliant, Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, possesses a destructive curse and a frightening ability to see the future. As a pretrans growing up in his father’s war camp, he was tormented and abused. As a member of the Brotherhood, he has no interest in love or emotion, only the battle with the Lessening Society. But when a mortal injury puts him in the care of a human surgeon, Dr. Jane Whitcomb, compels him to reveal his inner pain and taste true pleasure for the first time – until a destiny he didn’t choose takes him into a future that cannot include her…”

Review: In this, the 5th book of the infamous Black Dagger Brotherhood, we are reacquainted with Vishous and his tortured past. We are also following the growth of John Matthew as a pretrans and we’re introduced to a chosen by the name of Cormia . We meet Dr. Manny Manello and Dr. Jane Whitcomb, human doctors. The story gets going when Vishous is shot during a skirmish with a lessor and is taken to a human hospital. Enter Dr. Jane as she performs surgery on Vto save his life. Things are weird though being as V is a vampire and the real fun part of the story is when the brothers come to *rescue* V from the hospital, erasing memories and messing up cameras along the way.

From there, as you can probably guess, V and Dr. Jane form an immediate love bond and some extremely hot sex scenes ensue. Legendary sort of sex scenes. Put on your light BDSM hats for this stuff though. In the meantime, and the problem for V and Dr. Jane, is that the Scribe Virgin has dropped a bomb shell on V (and here comes the “Luke, I am your Father” crap that seems to be in EVERY damn book out there) and V has to commit his future to boffing all sorts of “chosen” gals for him (enter Cormia) to procreate for the Brotherhood. Hey, life’s a bitch, but someone has to *do* them right? ::thigh slap:: During all this, we struggle with John Matthew’s pretranshood and go on a night out at Zero Sum with his friends Blay and Qhuinn. As with everything John Matthew, he is not the focus of the story, but another chapter and it’s a chapter I personally love.

Most of the story is about Jane and V and how they can possibly fit into each other’s lives. The whole gang is back in this story, including Z and Bella, Wrath and a small mention of Beth, Mary and Melissa or Marissa or whatever her name is (I don’t care for her). We learn a little more about the Scribe Virgin (who I always never cared for but after this book, I actually feel a little sorry for her) and we learn a little about life in the Scribe Virgin’s world too. There is an exciting and heart-wrenching ending and a lovely epilogue that truly made me smile.

What I liked: As I just said, I adored the epilogue. It made me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside and for me, was the absolute best thing in the entire book. It will go down as one of my all time favorite endings EVER.

This was not my favorite BDB book. I’m not going to give it a very high rating for reasons I’ll talk about below but no matter what, this story and Ms. Ward’s writing style flat out bring pleasure to the reader and for that, and for the integrity of the series, this is a book you have to read.

What I disliked: The Cormia whining. Seriously girl? You are whining about having to boff some super hot guy and be treated like a treasure for the rest of your life? The *poor Cormia* story line BORED me to tears.

I actually missed the Lesser story line. I guess Ms. Ward couldn’t figure out new evil bad guys for this story and I can appreciate that so I’m not complaining that loudly. Only mentioning it. I hope it comes back though because it was exciting.

The story gets a little weird for me when Butch and V share a *loving* sort of moment and V actually thinks he is in love with Butch (while he is in love with Jane – confusion?) and we find out about a time in his past when he actually raped some poor guy. Plus there is mention that while V is a Dom, he has had male subs up to his little playhouse in the penthouse. So follow me here…V is a Dom that loves both men and women but is also a rapist and now in the story with Jane, he becomes a sub. If V isn’t confused, I am. I just didn’t get it.

The way V and Jane end up is a complete farse for me. I absolutely HATE it. I don’t know where, if anywhere, it will go, maybe we’ll learn more later and I’ll come to be okay with it, but I am flat out ANGRY and feel ripped off over it. Now I find myself wanting the *Luke, I am your father* stuff brought back.

My rating: 3 dimly shining stars

Don't hate on me! I still love the BDB and I'm absolutely continuing on with the series. I KNOW they'll get better. So if you are still with me, read on for Topic Thursday.

Hmmmm...okay, we'll being new to the meme thing Topic Thursdays are where we bring up any ol' topic we want to talk to you, our loyal blog readers about. I'm kinda following along in Donna's footsteps on this. In a previous post from her, we learned about her Bon Jovi addiction (and hey, who WOULDN'T be addicted to him? He's like major hot!). So I'm sitting here thinking what topic would be interesting to chit chat about.

The first thing that comes to mind is a subject close to my heart and that is animal rescue organizations. I am an animal freak. I love ALL animals. Crazy about them. I've always owned a dog. I can't remember when I haven't. I've had poodles and cocker spaniels but my favorite breed is Boxers and I've owned 5 of them. Right now, I have an 8 year old female Boxer. Her name is Drambuie (we name our dogs after alcohol). Drambuie's best friend is my son's dog, an Old English Bulldog named Winston (that's their photo over there -->). We adore these dogs like nothing I can begin to explain. We did not get these dogs from rescue organizations. They are both bred by breeders and purchased through reputable breeders. But the only reason we bought them from a breeder is because we fell in love with the dogs themselves. Drambuie was bred to be a show dog but she is 1" too small for the breed standard. So she was "sold" as a companion dog only. Winston was sold as a puppy. My son bought him because he just wanted a Bulldog. They connected on site and they've been connected every since.

I hate hearing about people buying dogs from pet stores. Please don't do that if you are considering a dog. PLEASE think about going to a local animal rescue or your shelter. There are so many dogs that are needing a home that will love them. Yeah, we bought ours from breeders but in the future, when it comes time for a new dog, we'll be going where a dog needs us first. I hope you too believe this way and can help spread the word. It's an important issue and one close to my heart.

That and yanno, reading hot smutty romance novels. ::eyebrow waggle::

I'd love to hear from you if you too want to encourage animal rescue organizations. Have a great Thursday and remember, tomorrow is TGIF right??? Of course right!

by Kelly
for Book Lover's Hideaway