By J.R. Ward
Read: Feb 2010
Rating: Devoured
I don’t know what it is about JR Ward, but her books are amazing. Once begun, it is impossible to stop. Everything else gets put on hold. And that took a serious chunk out of my work this week, as this beautiful, beautiful volume is over 600 pages. Yes, 600+ pages of fucking sexy Black Dagger Brothers.
But this book is not focusing on any of the Brothers. This is about Rehvenge, the Reverend, Caldwell’s number one party and vice dealer. He owns ZeroSum, the club the Brothers like to hang out in. He deals in drugs, sex, booze, whatever the party crowd wants. With his core team of Xhex the assassin, and the Moors iAm and Trez, he rules supreme. But he doesn’t wear a pimp’s fur coat and cane for show.
Rehvenge has a dark secret he hides from everyone, human and vampire alike. He is half symphath (I know, I know, the h‘s… I hate the h‘s…) a race of beings with no conscience and the ability to manipulate and overpower with their minds. Vampires have exiled most symphaths to a colony up north, and Rehvenge has put a lot of effort into making sure he doesn’t wind up there as well. He drugs himself with dopamine to keep the diabolical side of him under control, which numbs his limbs and lowers his body temperature. Always cold, always unfeeling, always careful. That is Rehvenge’s real existence.
It’s the dopamine that puts him in the path of Ehlena, a nurse at the vampire clinic. They have chemistry from the start, but she forces walls up between them, keeping it professional. But she notices that the veins where he has been injecting himself are infected… and that the doctor does not treat them. She follows up, and the two end up on the phone for hours. Time flies away while they chat like flirtatious old friends.
Rehvenge has been blackmailed for years, and now someone threatens to leak Rehvenge’s heritage to the vampire population. Someone is out to kill Wrath, the vampire king. A symphath would be suspected first… And Rehvenge proves how strong his vampire side is by sacrificing his own happiness to spare his mother, his sister, his niece… and his Ehlena.
Then she goes in after him.
I don’t recommend starting with this book in the series, as all the books are heavily entwined. It’s an actual saga, not just a romance series where the author hops around matching up characters. Ward is telling the story of a war, and no one gets left behind. In fact, readers who fell hard for Wrath and Beth in the first book will be very happy to see that they get a sort of reprise. Their relationship takes a serious hit, and Wrath’s health starts to fail as well. We also get to spend more time with Bella, Rehvenge’s sister.
True to Ward-form, she spends a big chunk of this book setting up the next, which concerns John Matthew, the mute young recruit. It’s been clear for a long while that he and Xhex have the hots for each other, but it’s only now that they start to act on it. Badly. John Matthew stops believing in the things he wished for as a child–a home, a lover, parents… pretty much everything he thought he’d gained has failed him.
But his enemy’s still around. Lash, the Omega’s evil spawn, is looking to take over Rehvenge’s drug dealing. He has his eye on the guy, too. And he’s getting involved with the symphath colony for his own purposes.
It’s all so deliciously knotted!!
And hot. Did I mention hot? Cuz it’s hot. And it’s not just one pairing you get to enjoy in this book, it’s at least three.
So, now I get to churn and froth and wait until April to spring for the next hardcover. *sob* …then I get to reread. MUAHA.
