March 22, 2010
New or casual readers of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series will be lost in its eighth installment (after 2009's Lover Avenged
), but Ward's fans love her soap opera storytelling and are happy to forgive unpronounceable names and occasionally overeager tough talk (at a solemn wedding, “ was smiling like a motherfucker”). Newly made vampire John Matthew vows to free his mate, the symphath Xhexania, from Lash, a paranoid coke addict who's transmuting into a nontemporal entity like his vampire-killer father, the Omega. Once freed, Xhexania joins the Brothers in battling the Omega, but refuses to acknowledge her emotional connection to John. Meanwhile, sexually promiscuous Qhuinn, shocked to find himself jealous when his cousin Saxton hooks up with flirtatious Blaylock, wonders whether he should have seduced Blay when he had the chance. Complicated subplots and tortured heroes abound, but attentive readers will love putting it all together.
April 1, 2010
Being a prisoner of war is nothing new to Xhex. She survived it before; shes determined to survive again, even if her captor is the sadistic Lash, who has convinced himself hes in love with her. The only true suffering she feels is for her treatment of John Matthew and how their relationship left off. For him, the loss is greater. Xhex is his bonded mate, and not knowing if shes alive or dead pushes him to the brink and tests his loyalties. Wards latest installment in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series (Lover Enshrined, 2008; Lover Avenged, 2009) lives up to the high standards she has established and delivers another tour de force of dark urban fantasy and heartrending romance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)