Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood #1)

[onlyfiction]

Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood #1)
By: J.R. Ward
Release Date: January 1, 2011 (First published February 19, 2005)
Publisher: Piatkus Books
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Series: Black Dagger Brotherhood (#1)
Summary: In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there's a deadly turf war raging between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other - six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Yet none of them relishes killing more than Wrath, the blind leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.




Review: There is nothing good about this book.

The story is a badly written, smut filled “romance” with an asshole hero and a heroine who makes women look like idiots who can’t control themselves around men.

My biggest issue is with the Brotherhood itself. The vampires in this book are big, listen to rap, and dress tough, but their names are really dumb. Why are they adding letters to their names to give them vampire street credibility? Vampires have their own traditions, customs, and language. Their names, however, read like those of pre-teen goth girls picking names for their future children. There is even one human, but it has an uninteresting name: Butch.

Despite the amount of explicit sex in these books, they do not feel very erotic. There was an extremely unlikely love-at-first-sight experience in the book, followed by smut. Unlikable characters lead to no emotional investment in their fate. My honest opinion of this book is that I have read far better fan fiction online.

Still baffled by everyone else’s glowing reviews. Dark Lover features terrible writing, clichéd romance, and male characters with teenage-girl speaking styles. For fans of trashy romance books, this is perfect, but for those who enjoy horror and fantasy, skip this nauseating, sophomoric read.