Blood Kiss on June 2nd 2016 Genres: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 592
Format: ARC
ISBN: 9780349409276
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Paradise, blooded daughter of the king's First Advisor, is ready to break free from the restrictive life of an aristocratic female. Her strategy? Join the Black Dagger Brotherhood's training center program and learn to fight for herself, think for herself...be herself. It's a good plan, until everything goes wrong. The schooling is unfathomably difficult, the other recruits feel more like enemies than allies, and it's very clear that the Brother in charge, Butch O'Neal, a.k.a. the Dhestroyer, is having serious problems in his own life.
And that's before she falls in love with a fellow classmate. Craeg, a common civilian, is nothing her father would ever want for her, but everything she could ask for in a male. As an act of violence threatens to tear apart the entire program, and the erotic pull between them grows irresistible, Paradise is tested in ways she never anticipated--and left wondering whether she's strong enough to claim her own power...on the field, and off.
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Karen’s Review of Blood Kiss
For readers of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series that miss the past, then Blood Kiss Black Dagger Legacy, will surely make those readers swoon. The first books of the series were more action adventure, than the political and social thriller that evolved as the series progressed. I have loved the metamorphoses of the series, but at times I yearned for the shitkickers on the street. In Blood Kiss Black Dagger Legacy, the leathers and shitkickers are buckled on. Ward has returned to her Urban Fantasy roots with this companion series and it had the gritty feel of her first Black Dagger Brotherhood books. In Blood Kiss two main plots lines appear simultaneously, one involving the training center for warriors being which has been reestablished. The other plot revolves around Safe Place and Marissa, the conduit between the two plots is Butch, as he is in charge of the training program, and is Marissa’s hellran. Frankly Marissa was always treated a little too much with kid gloves by Butch, and it irked me. Guess what? It irks Marissa too! The best thing about this book is that Marissa came out of it such a powerful force to be wrecked with, Butch will never think of her as a breakable porcelain doll again. I am still wanting closure or at least a slap down of Havers by his sister. I mean she is married to a Brother, some one needs to show her how to throw a punch. The plot line involving Safe Place is one fraught with suspense, as the Vampire society has no law enforcement, except the King’s audience.
The training center reopening was established during The King and The Shadow, the two previous books in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and everyone who is part of the vampire race can now join. Until this point in vampire society, only the glymera, was allowed to join. In this book we get a glimpse of the commoners, the average joes of the vamp world, as some of the new recruits are children of commoners. Because despite the Brothers being rough around the edges they are still part of the glymera class. I enjoyed the glimpse of commoner vampire life that Ward provided.
In both plots I was pulled into the storyline by the depth of the characters Ward created both old and new. Ward is a master storyteller and this books themes of redemption, vengeance and love propelled world Ward had built to include those of vampire society that have only been on the fringes.
I do wish that Ward had set up this book so that new readers would not have had to read the Black Dagger Brotherhood series to understand the plot lines. The book is not a standalone and readers will need the other books in the series to understand the history of the Brotherhood and the race up until this book, especially the raid by the Lessers. Ward also set up minor hints in the text as to how the new recruits mesh in the world that readers have already been privy too.
About J.R. Ward
J.R. Ward is the number one New York Times bestselling author of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series of vampire books. She is a winner of the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA award for Best Paranormal Romance and is a multiple RITA nominee. A graduate of Smith College, she was a double major in History and Art History with a medieval concentration in both and she still longs at times for a return to those days sitting in dark lecture halls, looking at slides of old triptychs and reliquaries. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, she was a corporate attorney, serving for many years as the Chief of Staff of one of Harvard Medical Schools premier teaching sites. Her idea of absolute heaven is a day filled with nothing but her computer, her dog and her coffee pot and the Brothers, of course.
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[…] Legacy, #1) by J.R. Ward Also by this author: The Shadows, The Bourbon Kings Also in this series: Blood Kiss Published by Signet, Penguin Audio on December 1st 2015 Genres: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy Pages: […]