Lover Revealed: BDB book 4

Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 4) by J. R. Ward

Goodreads Product Description: 
Butch O’Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard living, ex-homicide cop, he’s the only human ever to be allowed in the inner circle of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And he wants to go even deeper into the vampire world to engage in the turf war with the lessers. He’s got nothing to lose. His heart belongs to a female vampire, Marissa, an aristocratic beauty who’s way out of his league. If he can’t have her, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers…

When Butch sacrifices himself to save a civilian vampire from the slayers, he falls prey to the darkest force in the war. Left for dead but found by a miracle, the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back, though even her love may not be enough to save him…

Review
I really picked a bad time to fall in love with the brotherhood.  I haven’t even read DiTF yet, and I LOVE my Viking.  But damn it, after reading 3 books in quick succession, I just had to know what is going on with the bros.  And how annoying is it that sleep and work cut into reading time.  Anyone wanna hire me to be a full time reader?  Anyone?

I thought book 4 was wildly exciting, even if I was a bit frustrated with the not knowing what was going on.  But I love a book that keeps you guessing and after reading, I have so many questions.

In this book, I wasn’t as interested in the love story part of it as I was with the last few books.  At first, Marissa pain and fear about being unwanted was heart breaking, especially in the opening scene where she described herself as feeling so trapped. I felt for her, I really did.  But then that storyline got so old and uninteresting.  All the books thus far have the same ‘miscommunication is keeping them apart’ thing going on between the warrior and his ‘woman’ and by book 4 that is predictable and boring.  Plus, after a while, Marissa virgin status just didn’t seem believable, especially when she told Butch she had never touched herself in an erotic way…. ummmm… Wha?  She’s been a virgin for three centuries, she wants sex desperately, and she is a vampire, but she’s never touched herself!  Okay… yeah… not buying it.

Butch’s back story is revealed pretty early on, and it becomes clear to the reader that his real father was not the same man as his brothers and sisters.  This is confirmed in the epilogue of the story.  So, that is the something different about Butch that allows him to join the brotherhood.  But what left me baffled was when The Omega ended up putting a piece of himself into Butch.  And now, because of that, Butch is the ultimate destroyer of the slayers in the Lesser Society.  Why would The Omega help create something that will eventually kill him?  *ponders*

The best parts of the story were the interactions between Butch and Vishous.  There was something so palpable between them, and by the end I was strung out on all the sexual energy they ignited amongst themselves.  This was felt more vividly through Vishous, and at one point he even thought of Butch as “mine”.  WOW!  Later we learn that with Butch’s new ability to evaporate slayers, Butch is the dark and Vishous is the light and they are two halves of the same whole.  And I couldn’t help but wish that more was shared between them.  Butch and V seemed to belong together, which, to me, made Marissa so irrelevant.    

Favorite scene: 

With delicious precision, V’s fangs pressed against the vein that ran up from Butch’s heart, then slowly, inexorably, punched through skin.  Their chests merged.

Butch closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of it all, the warmth of their bodies so close, the way V’s hair felt soft on the jaw, the slide of the powerful male arm as it slipped around his waist.  On their own accord, Butch’s hands left the pegs and came to rest on V’s hips, squeezing that hard flesh, bringing them together from head to foot.  A tremor went  through one of them.  Or maybe…  

Lover Revealed was another thrilling installment in the BDB series.  So far, my favorite book has been Z’s story, Lover Awakened, but V’s book is up next and I’m excited to read it.  But first, I will finally get to DiTF and my Viking.   

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Posted at 4:57 pm  •  Labels: 2010, 3 stars, BDB, Book Review, J.R. Ward, Kindle Edition, paranormal romance, Vampires