A dark world 1

Dark Lover: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood (Paperback)

Customer Review

I was a little dubious deal with this book - the title and the cover, I was afraid one of these pseudo-pretext vampire novels almost pornographic story about the end of a dull story.

But what a great surprise !!!
JR Ward plunges us into a dark world and well organized, the atmosphere is deep and intoxicating. The world in which we live is well established and reflected, with its traditions and beliefs.

In this book, we follow members of the "black dagger brotherhood", the "brothers" then. They are warriors vampires, powerful and lethal, whose role is to protect the other race, the Vampire Slayer "civilians." Because race is threatened with extinction: fertility is minimal (vampires are born and not created), mortality during the transition is high, but most of vampire killers are organized and strong and have been working for the dawn of time destroy the vampires: those terrible enemies are the "lessers". The war between vampires and lessers is violent and vampires seem about to lose it.

I want to emphasize three points that I particularly enjoyed:
- First, the heroes are true males! Finally some Urban Fantasy without the super-powerful super-sexy heroine who traverses the plot of a lackadaisical not throwing jokes at all costs! Here it is even the contrary, women are the weaker sex (and even a little too subject !!)
- Each brother has his qualities, but especially huge weaknesses. Each character is portrayed with care, all the brothers are different. Wrath Thus, the central character of this first volume, is visually impaired, almost blind. And it seems to despise himself. Another brother (Zhadist) lost almost everything positive feeling because of his past (he was tortured for a century) and became almost uncontrollable. Etc. etc.
- Here, if vampires heal quickly, there is no miraculous cure for Jeanine Frost: when a vampire loses a limb, well, it does not grow back (eg Phury has an artificial foot) . Vampires can keep track of their injuries (as Zhadist, scarred).

Each volume is devoted in particular to one of the brothers. This first volume focuses on Wrath, the blind king. To honor the promise made to a "brother" died, he protects the latter's daughter, a human whose transition is imminent but yet knows nothing of the world of vampires. Not surprisingly, their mutual attraction constitute the story "romantic" of the novel.
Meanwhile, the war with the "lessers" rages.

All in all a very very successful first volume I can only recommend!