Review: Lover Revealed

Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward

Description:

Butch O'Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard living, ex-homicide cop, he's the only human ever to be allowed in the inner circle of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And he wants to go even deeper into the vampire world to engage in the turf war with the lessers. He's got nothing to lose. His heart belongs to a female vampire, Marissa, an aristocratic beauty who's way out of his league. If he can't have her, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers...


When Butch sacrifices himself to save a civilian vampire from the slayers, he falls prey to the darkest force in the war. Left for dead but found by a miracle, the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back, though even her love may not be enough to save him...

Thoughts:

Quite a few fans of the series have told me that they hadn't been interested in Butch's story and that it would be a little disappointing to read it.

For me, Butch has been a character that I was dying of curiosity to read about. I wanted more background on him. Best of all, I wanted the scoop on Butch and Marissa hooking up! Butch was the only human male character in the series and I found him completely fascinating.

In the end Butch has enough vamp blood in him to be “turned,” I was slightly disappointed by this. The idea of a human in the Brotherhood really tickled my fancy, but it was till really fun to have Butch join the blood sucking club.

I'm getting a strong feeling that with this series a lot of the relationship issues are mainly due to the characters not communicating. A couple of times I got frustrated with Butch and Marissa when the thing that would have solved there issue was a quick sit and talk. What do I know, tension makes the drama!

As always Ward is fantastic at including side stories. John Mathew's side story was really engaging. The reader gets to follow him as his rage finally gets turned into grief at the lost of Tohrment leaving. He's getting closer to the transition and the borther's are trying to help guide him. Zsadist makes fantastic little appearances as he tries to “help” John out. It's kind of sad as John struggles to accept his muteness, and he sees it as a weakness.

Mr. X has been reinstated as the head Forelesser and he's out to find a permanent way to end his undead life, he does not want to go back to the Omega. Mr. X was the very first lesser we were introduced to in the first book, Dark Lover. I really enjoyed his story as he tried to find the keys to a prophecy that would give one man the power to devour lessers and really kill them. The fact that an evil guy like Mr. X was trying so desperately to escape the “ultimate evil.” The irony was not lost on me.

The story between Vishous and Butch was really interesting. They're really great friends, but Vishous starts to realize that his feeling for Butch may not be as “pure” as he thought. Ward does a fantastic job telling this development as well as them both moving on with it. I was a little leery at the prospect of Vishous getting a crush on Butch. But, I think I enjoyed it. ^_-

Bottom Line:

While this isn't the strongest love story in the series (come on, it's going to be hard after Bella and Zsadist) I really enjoyed Butch's story. His transition to vampire and the back story on him was fantastic! The whole side story of Mr. X was really fun as well as he tries to make the prophecy come true, and getting more details on the Omega was really interesting. As usual all the side stories are fantastic! It's one of my favorite things to see in PNR and I love that it continues through out the series. This one was a little lighter then the the others, but still dark enough to be edgy!

Sexual Content:

PNR, quite a few hot scenes!

5/5- Fabulous, a beautiful obsession.