Aimee

This is one of the most anticipated books in this series. Well, for me at least. There are things in this book that I loved. But, there were things in here that I didn't care for. Even things that had me frustrated. The things that I loved, however, overcame most of everything that annoyed me. Mostly, even at book 11 in the series, this story line is still one that is compelling and entertaining.

I get caught up in hoping and praying that the brothers find a way to stay safe from The Band of Bastards. And of course, like this whole series, I imagine this will resolve itself, in say, three or four more books. The story shows no signs of slowing down. I'm not sure what the future holds for the Black Dagger Brotherhood, as I'm not sure who would be next, but I do know that the story will continue to draw me in and takes me on an adventure. But when you think you might get a little action, the trail to the plot line goes cold.

There were a few things that kept this from being a 5 star book for me. I may not be the only one that feels this way, but J.R. Ward has gotten very long winded in her Black Dagger Brotherhood series. I find myself skimming through some of the chapters. In a book that is drowning in view points, there is a lot to bog down this novel and make the action come to a crawl. The adventure in the book is not very fast paced. In fact, it almost feels glacier. There is very little progress. We get it. It has to somehow stretch out a few more books or ten. But a part of me wants some resolution from some of the plot lines that have formed and that slowly slipped away over the course of the series. Maybe it's just me, but I want to see the Brothers on the winning side every now and then. There is a tiny spark of a new threat to the Brotherhood that is added in the book. But I have this feeling that it will take another several books to resolve, if ever. And that is very frustrating.

It seems like the Lessening Society, and the Omega has taken a back seat. Or maybe they are the new side story. Whatever it is, we are almost seeing less and less of the brothers going out and killing them some lessers to rid them of the threat against their race. Of course, it is hard to have so many huge threats in a book. We have the Lessening Society and the Band of Bastards. Another couple of books and we might see these threats fade a bit, and a new enemy will show itself, and we will be left dangling all over again. I hope I'm wrong.

However, the laws that Wrath is liking into is something that really intrigued me. This has potential for a lot of things. For Wrath to stick it to the Glymera or for the Glymera to stick it to Wrath. This seems to be a new threat to the King. It seems like only the Brothers are in favor of him remaining King. Everyone else of the race, not so much. It is butt clenching worthy as the story progresses and I do hope the Brothers come out on top. I hope we see the Glymera get what is coming to them. That's just one of my hopes for the coming books.

Pet peeves. I don't do text speech. I don't care for it. There were several times in the book where Ward choose to utilize text speech. BFD. FFS. Both were used several times. And not in a way that would make it seem logical to use the abbreviations. Now it might be that I don't think in abbreviations. While it is a miner detail, it stood out enough that I couldn't help but wonder if the author had to save space on her word count to not write out the whole thought. In my books I like words to be spelled out. Luckily for me, I know what these two mean, but that may not always be the case.

Mostly, however, I enjoy the story. Even the parts that I skim when I just want to get to a bit of action. Any action. Mostly, while I hope that we get to see the Brothers in action in the field sometime soon like we used to, I enjoy the journey that the two people have to make in order to come together. Qhuinn had a lot of things to work out. His family being the despicable snooty people they were, they left a very big shadow on his soul. And we finally get to see him work it out and realize that they were wrong. Qhuinn's growth is tender and heart wrenching, and he is one lucky guy to have Blay in his corner (even if the struggle they had could have been resolved in the beginning instead of at the end). That's what character development is supposed to look like! I'm very glad we finally got Qhuinn and Blay's story. Their story couldn't have turned out any better.