Book #16 of 2010

Lover Enshrined (Black Dagger Brotherhood Novel #6) by J.R. Ward
Published 2008/534 pages

Fiercely loyal to the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Phury has sacrificed himself for the good of the race, becoming the male responsible for keeping the Brotherhood’s bloodlines alive.  As Primale of the Chosen, he is obligated to father the sons and daughters who will ensure that traditions of the race survive, and that there are warriors to fight those who want all vampires extinguished.
As his first mate, the Chosen Cormia wants to win not only his body but his heart for herself.  She is drawn to the noble responsibility behind the emotionally scarred male.  But Phury has never allowed himself to know pleasure or joy.  As the war with Lessening Society grows grim, tragedy looms over the Brotherhood’s mansion, and Phury must decide between duty and love….

I don't even know where to start with this one-- I guess I should start by saying that all of you paranormal romance fans should definitely read these books and start from the first one, Dark Lover. I'd given it to my sister who finished it a few days ago, and her comment was "I think I'm gonna fall in love with all of [the brothers] as I read the books." I have to second her on that one because that's just how it works.

Lover Enshrined, unlike the first five books of BDB, especially Lover Eternal and Lover Awakened, wasn't that big of a romance novel. This sounds negative, but it's not, really, because there was so much more going on.

Phury, unlike the other warrior brothers, puts himself before others first. Having saved his twin Zsadist from slavery after searching for him for an eternity and losing his lower leg in the process, he has his own demons and turns to drugs to ease the pain. As he turns to drugs more and more often, he also steps up to the role of the Primale so his brother Vishous can be with his shellan, which means he's expected to mate with the Chosen-- except he falls for Cormia, the first mate, and doesn't go through with the whole Primale thing. It was rather amazing to see what was going on inside his head, and I very much enjoyed reading him connecting with Zsadist finally.

Apart from Phury, finding out more about the Chosen and the "other side" was rather exciting for me as well. The more I found out about it, the more hated it though because it reminded me of my strict, annoying high school. I was glad in the end when Phury talked to the Scribe Virgin and brought them out of there. I especially enjoyed the last chapter where we get a glimpse of the Chosen's daily activities living all together at Rehvenge's property.

Rehvenge... The next book (and I'm STILL waiting for it to show up at my door) is his. I'm not sure how I feel about him. He's always seemed cool, and I like his sense of humor and everything, but I don't know how exactly I feel about sympaths. I guess I just don't get their whole deal yet. Hopefully Rehv's book will clear that up a little bit.

Like I've said, there's so much going on in this book. My favorite parts were definitely the ones about warrior-to-bes John Matthew, Qhuinn and Blaylock. And I'm very very excited about John Matthew's book, Lover Mine, showing up at my door with Rehvenge's.

I genuinely do think J.R. Ward just keeps getting better and better. Yes, the romances are to die for. But that's not the one main focus of the books, which I think is one of the reasons why they're so addictive. I'm so looking forward to more exciting plots now that Thorment is back and Lash (hate him!) is playing for the enemy's team.

Book #15 of 2010

Ruthless and brilliant, Vishous son of the Bloodletter possesses a destructive curse and a frightening ability to see the future. As a pretrans growing up in his father's war camp, he was tormented and abused. As a member of the Brotherhood, he has no interest in love or emotion, only the battle with the Lessening Society. But when a mortal injury puts him in the care of a human surgeon, Dr. Jane Whitcomb compels him to reveal his inner pain and taste true pleasure for the first time- until a destiny he didn't choose takes him into a future that cannot include her.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****
Is Vishous an interesting character? Yes-- he's a tech-savvy, bisexual warrior vampire who's into BDSM and can heal or electrocute humans/vampires with his magic glowing hand. Since the beginning of the series, I've thought he was pretty cool and especially enjoyed reading his interactions with Butch. In this book, however, I wasn't as curious about him as I'd expected I would be because there was so much more going on. The biggest shocker about him is the fact that we (and he himself, too) find out The Scribe Virgin is his birth mother. His back story with his father, Bloodletter, was rather interesting as well, but, like I've said, failed to be the center of my attention because there was so much more going on.

• Phury loses his virginity after a forever-long celibacy. He's still hung up on Bella, which makes me rather sad to read about because she's his twin's shellan. Because of all this, he takes Vishous's place as the Primale, which I have mixed feelings about, yet I cannot wait to read about him and The Chosen, Cormia, in the next book.
• John Matthew was the most interesting part of the book. He finally went through his transaction and is a warrior-sized vampire, who uses the daggers with his left hand like Darius used to. I remember Darius making a request to the Scribe Virgin in the first book, so I have my suspicions about this, but I'll just wait and see instead of dwelling too much on it.
• Lash is a whole different story. I felt like something was up with him, too, and I'm hoping I'm right and that I'll find out what it is in the following books.
• Jane, the female Vishous falls in love with, was alright. The way she comes back after she's killed by a lesser feels kinda funny to me, though. I'm not too crazy about the whole "Jane, the Friendly Ghost" kinda deal. 
• The lessers weren't around as much in this book, so I'm expecting them to make a strong comeback.

Book #13 of 2010

Even within the vampire brotherhood, Zsadist is feared. Still bearing the scars from a tortured past, he is renowned for his unquenchable fury. Anger is his only companion, and terror is his only passion-until he rescues a beautiful female from the evil Lessening Society. 

***SPOILER ALERT***
This one brought me to tears at least three times. In the first two books, whenever I read about Zsadist, I had a "what the hell is his problem?!" kind of attitude toward him. You know he was a slave and all and probably went through hell, but you still don't understand why he's so cold and very killer-like all the time.

In Love Awakened, though, you get the whole story behind this "tortured hero," which instantly makes you feel for him. Although I wanted to strangle him when he kept denying love and happiness to himself, I did understand the reasons why.

As torture-filled as they may be, I enjoyed reading about Zsadist's past, and what his twin had to go through to free him. This also lead to my sobbing hard when Phury shaved his hair off and scarring his face to go meet the lesser in his twin's place, and their bonding at Haver's when Zsadist hugged him.

Time for a few bullet points:

• Zsadist eating with Rhage to gain weight = *melt*
• I'm still very curious about why Vishous made Butch drink his blood, and I'm hoping it will be revealed in the next book.
• John Matthew is such a cute character. I was so sad when both Wilsie and Sarelle were killed by the lesser and Tohr disappeared.

That's all I can think of right now, but whoever said these books keep getting better is damn right. And no, I'm not sick of their listening rap music and walking around in shit kickers all the time. 

Onto book four...

Book #11 of 2010

The electrifying follow-up to the phenomenal best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ("An intelligent, ingeniously plotted, utterly engrossing thriller" –The Washington Post), and this time it is Lisbeth Salander, the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker, who is the focus and fierce heart of the story.

Mikael Blomkvist—crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium—has decided to publish a story exposing an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government.

On the eve of publication, the two reporters responsible for the story are brutally murdered. But perhaps more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander.

Now, as Blomkvist—alone in his belief in her innocence—plunges into his own investigation of the slayings, Salander is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all.

(I've updated my book list for 2010.)

I'm not even going to bother reviewing this one-- it was as great as the first one of the series, if not more. This time, though, the subject was more interesting: sex trafficking. Larsson really has a way of keeping the reader hooked, and he can easily juggle so many characters, providing many details while building their personalities and actions.

The only problem I have is with the ending, and not because it's bad, but because I cannot wait for the third and last book now, which will be out in English in May.

P.S. I wouldn't recommend reading this one before reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo first.

Now I'm back to vampire novels. What a shock!

Book #10 of 2010

An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (originally titled "Men Who Hate Women" in Swedish) combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

When I first started reading this, I had a "oh, no!" moment because of all the financial, business-related talk in the beginning. I must admit that it took me about a week to get through the first 100 pages, reading it on and off. After one of the main characters (Blomkvist) starts working for Henrik Vanger, though, it really picks up, and it becomes very hard to put the book down.

There's a Vanger Family Tree chart at the beginning of the book, which is very useful since all the Vangers get mixed up in your head from time to time. I also had trouble keeping up with the real names and nicknames and everything, but you get used to that after a while as well. There's also maps of Hedeby by the author himself, which would be helpful to understand what events took place where.

I really liked the fact that there's more than one mystery going on in the book, and it's both event and character driven. While reading you might think you have solved the mystery, and even if you guess correctly who the murderer is, your jaw is pretty much gonna drop when the whole truth is revealed.

This is one of the few books I've read that really lived up to the hype. (5/5)

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