Lover At Last: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I stopped reading het romance more or less in 2006, but Sherrilyn Kenyon and J.R. Ward were among the last authors I read in that genre, and I remember I liked them. I especially liked the paranormal genre (while oddly I now prefer the contemporary ones) probably for their alpha male hero, always so strong, always so protective, always so bound to being honorable and right. That is not how Qhuinn and Blay are, or at least not totally; they are not really Alpha males, they are more enoforcerers, and till now they gravitated on the edge of the series, favorites to many readers but never having their own story. On the forums there was speculation they were gays, but the author never really gave them the definitive push, not until the book before this one: from what I gathered (since I haven’t read that one), Blay finally came out, but not to be with Qhuinn, but instead with Qhuinn’s cousin, Saxton; and to make things even more complicated, Qhuinn decides to have a child with a female, even if he didn’t mate with her.

So this is the situation we are when this book starts, and I was not sure I liked it. For Qhuinn and Blay to be together it meant Blay had to betray Saxton, and for what I could say, Saxton was a good man. And Layla, Qhuinn’s Chosen and the mother of his still unborn child? Was it right for her what was happening? And again, she was apparently a good and comprehensive woman, someone who deserved a lover of her own. So yes, I’m not sure why and if there was a reason, but J.R. Ward didn’t pave the path for these two to be together in an easy way, a lot of hurt had to be done and it seemed there was not solution for everyone to be happy.

The plot was running in two parallel but separate ways: one was the center piece story about Qhuinn and Blay, a plot that was introduced in the previous book and that was to find an end in this one; the other was about the ongoing fight of the Brotherhood and the personal target of Wrath to make a better kingdom for everyone to live in. Not having read the previous books (and I strongly suggest to read the summary of all previous books to have an idea of the characters and of what happened before), I have to be sincere, I didn’t care much for the second plot; I mostly focused on Qhuinn and Blay, with some spare interest on Layla, Saxton and John Matthew (actually I was hoping for more on this last supporting character). This story was good, pretty much as I remembered this author was, and the sex scenes were hot, and this statement arrives from someone that usually doesn’t care much for them. In my previous experience with an het romance author trying her hand to a gay romance, the feeling was that she didn’t dare too much in the sex department, but here J.R. Ward was not shy at all. Now don’t get me wrong, she neither went into almost analytical details, and maybe that is a bonus, she cannot go wrong in that way, but for sure she gave these two guys enough time and space to enjoy also the physical side of their relationship.

Amazon: Lover At Last: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
Amazon Kindle: Lover At Last: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
Hardcover: 608 pages
Publisher: NAL Hardcover; 1 edition (March 26, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0451239350
ISBN-13: 978-0451239358

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Comments

[hpstrangelove.livejournal.com]

I just started reading book 1 in this series because I heard about this one last week. I'm not a big reader of explicit het, but I really am enjoying the book so far...hopefully I can make it through to book 11.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

good luck! I was not that zelant, I went directly to book 11 ;-)