My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Number-one New York Times best-selling author J. R. Ward’s novels of the Black Dagger Brotherhood continue, as a vampire warrior crosses the line between life and death…and ventures into an erotic world of dark dreams and darker desires.
Ever since the death of his shellan, Tohrment has been unrecognizable from the vampire leader he once was. Physically emaciated and heartbroken beyond despair, he has been brought back to the Brotherhood by a self-serving fallen angel. Now, fighting once again with ruthless vengeance, he is unprepared to face a new kind of tragedy.
When Tohr begins to see his beloved in his dreams – trapped in a cold, isolated netherworld far from the peace and tranquility of the Fade – he turns to the angel in hopes of saving the one he has lost. But because Lassiter tells him he must learn to love another to free his former mate, Tohr knows they are all doomed….
Except then a female with a shadowed history begins to get through to him. Against the backdrop of the raging war with the lessers, and with a new clan of vampires vying for the Blind King’s throne, Tohr struggles between the buried past and a very hot, passion-filled future….But can his heart let go and set all of them free?
This book is about Tohr and his journey to redemption. I liked that it spanned a whole year and I liked that the love was gradual. I liked No’One – at least up to a certain extent. She wasn’t written as a victim, but as someone caught in a cycle who was trying to find her way again. For the first time, I think the female character was stronger than the male. Which is a first for the WARDen, as her males as so very…male.
Lassiter was amazing, as always and I found myself eager to read about him throughout this book.
I would have liked this book so much more if it was a little more focused. I don’t see why I needed to know almost every single person’s thoughts. Again it felt like this was a filler book, which is sad. Ward needs to focus a little bit more on the book she is currently writing rather than always thinking about the next one. This is the third book, in a row, that has felt cramped with background information.
Why was it necessary to have so much of Quinn and Blaylock’s story in this? Are they not the next book? Can’t their story wait. I don’t see why we couldn’t have an overlap in the next installment. Books in series do not need to be linear. I thought that was just silly on Ward’s part.
Also, every single person, aside from V and Quinn, sound exactly the same. It drives me insane, especially when there are so many characters, I can never tell who’s speaking. I think she needs to focus a bit more and go back and edit what she writes. I didn’t need that snippet with Marissa and Butch, I didn’t need any of that interaction with Blay and Saxton, I didn’t need that entire other book about John and Xhex (that was just so unnecessary IMHO). Without those diversions, the book would have a tenseness that would have kept me much more engaged. But getting pulled out of Tohr and No’One’s story constantly just made them feel like part of an anthology.
As for the Narrator, he was good, not the best. I would have liked to have the proper names for people, like No’One…I mean, it’s No One, not Noown. That was annoying, to say the least. And HEX, not Zex. But aside from that, it was good.
Safe Reading!
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