I'm not normally a romance reader, let alone paranormal romance, but I wanted something spicy, so I gave this well-reviewed 1st book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series a shot. First, I just wanna say, do not start your reading by going over the rather silly glossary placed in the front of the paperback edition. You will find it confusing and unintentionally comical. Terms like 'leelan' and 'shellan' and 'hellan' vaguely sound like Celtic-isms or the names people make up for their unfortunate progeny these days. Still, the author is creating a secret culture complete with its own separate language and customs and you gotta give her props for inventing something that sounds halfway plausible even if it is amusing outside of context of the book. It will be easy enough to pick up on definition of these terms as you read, so don't worry about the glossary.
Second, I foolishly did not anticipate so much blood, gore, and violence in a paranormal romance. Maybe I was expecting a brooding ephemeral vampire dude, but what I got instead was a rather unsophisticated and brutish vampire, frequently described in terms of his immense size and black leather wardrobe. 'Wrath' (don't you love the name?) and his brothers are armed to the teeth, have problems expressing themselves, and pump hard core rap on their SUV sound systems. Yes, these are BAD dudes. So very, very bad. Can't you smell the testosterone? The smelly leather? Can't you hear the tough locker-room banter? If you read this book, you will.
Along with the dark and deadly subculture of the brotherhood, we learn of the 'lessers'; soulless former humans turned vampire hunters who have been unleashed by the mysterious 'Omega,' which I am assuming we learn more of later in the series. Mr. X is the central lesser, or 'fore-lesser' in this novel and I applaud J.R. Ward for bravely depicting, or attempting to depict the inner workings of a soulless psychopath and giving us a first-hand view of what goes on in his mind as he plots his rise within the lesser ranks, his recruitment of a young aspiring sociopath, and his methodical yet cowardly approach to vampire hunting. While generally distasteful, I found his sections of the book somewhat intriguing.
Finally, to the love story/sex scenes. The two main characters are Wrath, king of vampires and Beth, the half-vampire daughter of a recently eliminated vampire aristocrat. These two are supposed to fall in love, but their first scene together is all about lust. Nary a word transpires between the two before they get to know each other in the most intimate manner. Lust at first sight. Tenderness eventually develops and the four or five sex scenes throughout the book, on a scale that ranges from 'missionary' to 'suspended from the ceiling,' I'd rate solidly as missionary. The sex was extremely unimaginative and the author used a lot of "jolts of lust" and bodies "raging for release" to express the urgency and carnal desires gripping the two characters as they encounter each other. There are two scenes of oral sex (presumably to demonstrate the give-and-take nature of their relationship), but all in all, pretty missionary in nature.
Ultimately, this book is a page-turner. You're reading it to find out what happens next, although whether you develop any sympathy for these characters might depend on how well you want to credit a violent brotherhood with qualities worth caring about. The 'lessers' certainly present you with a foil--a grasping group of power-hungry murderers and psychopaths who smell like baby powder and lack the strict code of honor as followed by the brotherhood. If anything, they certainly appear to have less redeeming qualities than the vampire brothers. In fact, we do see Wrath re-engage in the more constructive behaviors required of a true king as he realizes his love for Beth. And we also see some of the brothers move away from sheer nihilistic behavior to something resembling brotherly love, and that's probably enough to keep turning those pages.
400 pages
No comments:
Post a Comment