Sarah's Bookshelf

I just finished reading this book by J.R. Ward.  This is the eighth book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.  Wow!  This book had the best ending of the books I’ve read in the series.  Hopefully I’m not spoiling anything by saying this, but this book (I felt) was a lot more violent and graphic than some of the other books, but the ending really made it all worthwhile.

If you’ve read the other books in the series you’ve watched John Matthew grow up and become an unofficial member of the Brotherhood.  You’ve also seen the way he acts around Xhex, Rhevenge’s former head-of-security.  In the previous book, Xhex was abducted by Lash, the former brother-in-training-now-leader-of-the-lessors.  In this book we follow the search for her and John Matthew’s feelings, which have really bloomed into something much more intense than his initial crush.  Like the others in this series, this book has a lot of action, violence, language, laughs, and supernatural twists that keep this series interesting.  If this is your first time reading Ward, I’d suggest you start with the first book and read the series in order (start with Dark Lover).  I would recommend staying away from these books if you have an aversion to reading about any kind of violence, but especially violence to women.

Since I needed closure with John Matthew, who’s been a side character for the entire series, I was planning on reading the book no matter what.   I’m glad I did read it because I think this book was my new favorite of the series.  I was talking to my friend Heather about these books (she was the one who initially told me about them).  We were commiserating on the fact that all the books start out slow, but by about the half-way point they get so good they are difficult to put down.  I think that’s true for pretty much the whole series.  So if you are finding getting into this series difficult, just keep that in mind.  These books truly are some of the best and most interesting fantasy I’ve read in a while.  I should probably admit that I’m not usually a huge fantasy fan, but Ward does such a fantastic job of creating this alternate universe that I just find it difficult to put these books down.

I have no idea what’s in store for this series next, as the single brothers are all mated at this point.  I’ll keep my eyes open for any new chapters, though.