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Customer Reviews
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Ali | 2010-02-11 |
What a thrill to be so totally immersed back into the world of the black dagger brotherhood again and I have to say, J.R.Ward really has out done herself. Not since Wellsie has there been a more intense, more dramatic book in this series. It’s a WHOLE lot of wow. Written in her usual style, there won’t be too many shocks to fans in regards to style, flow or general rhythm, but Lover Avenged is serious ‘bang-for-buck’ reading – there are so many stories tied up in this book it could almost be a successful ending for the series. This is technically Rehvenge’s story. He’s not a character I’ve particularly liked (well, he’s not a character we are supposed to have liked!), but he really gets a makeover in Lover Avenged. We’ve had glimpses of his nicer side when he was courting Melissa, but it’s always been nice with an ulterior motive. Now we just get to see a little of the bad boy with a heart of gold scenario. |
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rcourtney@fangtasticfiction.co | 2009-12-15 |
| I had Lover Avenged by JR Ward for ten days before I started reading it. Believe me, this is unusual. I had found the first two books of the Black Dagger Brotherhood years ago when in England and had been breathless with admiration for these books. This was a good year before anything from JR Ward started showing up in Australian bookshops, so I had a long wait before being able to keep exploring this world. During that time my poor books because completely dog eared as I read and reread them. As each book was released I gobbled it down with an urgency uncommon even for me, a lover of urban and paranormal fantasy romances. I preferred some of the books over others, got annoyed at some of the twists, but was always, always engrossed by the characters, the emotions, the complications and the challenges in this series. And then I came to Rhevenge’s story. And I hesitated. I didn’t like Rhevenge, never had. He was nasty, perverted, cold and completely unlovable. So I thought. Again I am in the situation of gasping for breath at JR Ward’s genius. How could she take a character I so disliked, a story I was anxious to avoid and turned my perceptions around so wholeheartedly … and she has done so while staying true to Rhev’s activities and without changing his character! So, now I have read Lover Avenged. I spent a day and a half completely absorbed in this story and the journey of a sympath drug lord sociopath and now, well now I’m already having separation anxiety that the book is finished and I’m no longer part of this world. Why? What has changed so comprehensively for me? Lover Avenged takes us into Rhevenge’s mind and heart as he balances his drug and prostitution nightclub business with his love of his family and need to protect them from his nature and the evil agreement he has made with the sympath princess who threatens to expose him. Into this dark and quite awful world comes the clarity, compassion and strength of Ehlena, a nurse from Haver’s clinic, who is battling to care for her schizophrenic father and survive financially. Ehlena is no idiotic do-gooder. Yes she has a core of compassion and kindness but thankfully JR Ward has given her a complexity of character that makes her one of the best developed of the women in the BDB world. Therefore as we learn the depths of Rhev we also come to understand Ehlena and feel both the chasm between them and the hope that they will manage to survive together. As always in the BDB series, the cast of characters around the central pair are known and important. As much as this is Rhev and Ehlena’s journey, we also have a large portion of the book focused on Wrath as he resists being King and battles increased blindness. We also have John and Xhex circling each other, Tohr balance on the knife-edge of giving up or trying to return to the Brotherhood, a worrisome distance from the Scribe Virgin, Lash consolidating his position …. Basically there’s a heck of a lot going on. This is both good and bad. As this is the seventh book in the series, we now understand what a complex world this is. The lives of other characters aren’t put on hold while Rhev has his moment on the page: instead their problems, successes, actions, etc continue as they would in real life, and everything in this world is so heightened that time has to be spent explaining the peripheral events. Unfortunately this pulls the focus from the central plot and creates a great deal of jumping around, and as you get closer to the end of the book you’re already pondering which plot thread will become the next focus in the series. The multiple plots are one of the reasons why this is such a physically BIG book, and being petty, actually uncomfortable to hold while reading. There is just so much going on that you need your entire focus to follow each thread, while also developing tendonitis from holding the book! I bet authors forget this basic but frankly important aspect for readers. But while the plots and characters and intricate and varied, this is also one of the most emotional books I have read in a long time. I was consumed by the feelings and had to take breaks from reading just so I could take a breath and take in the intensity of what I was feeling. There is a reality to the emotions and an honesty to the prose that touched me deeply. I’m left feeling drained, satisfied, worried and quite wrung-out. I need a strong cup of tea after all of this! So …. is it even possible to sum up how I feel about this book? I just don’t know. I still get annoyed at the contrivances of the spellings and banter, there were some over-complications with sub-plots, the book was just too damned big …. but … I loved every minute of it. This was an exhausting, engrossing, intelligent and emotional story. I have to admit, JR Ward is a Fang Goddess! | ||
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