Book Review – “Lover Awakened” by J.R. Ward

Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 3)
This is Book#3 of the series, and was my absolute favorite! The emotional connections and self discovery were deeply explored, and not a single thing was left out. I bonded with the characters, and enjoyed the journey they took me on, from self loathing, to unconditional love.

Zsadist. The name says it all. A deeply damaged character that instills fear in anyone that sees him. With his seething pitch black eyes, his towering, skeletal physique, his shaved skull, piercings, tattoos, and nasty jagged scar running down the middle of his face, you get the impressions that HE IS the nightmare vampire that all the horror stories warn you about. Full of hate, anger, and emotional disconnect. How could anyone ever try to even approach him, let alone, be attracted to him?

Ahhhh but our heroin Bella, the beautiful Aristocrat Vampire from Book two, (and in Book two) only has eyes for him, and even SHE doesn’t understand why. Each encounter she had with him was unpleasant and full of dangerous warning directly from him to STAY AWAY.

As “Phury”, his twin brother describes him,

“You need to stay away from him…My twin’s not broken. He’s ruined”

In this book, she has been captured and held hostage by a particular Lesser (who is pure evil, but discovers he’s in love with her, as she reminds him of his dead wife – that story in itself is deeply ugly, and delusional on his part).

When Zsadist discovers she has been kidnapped, his only mission in life is to find her, and save her. Despite his hatred of life, and of himself, his need to rescue her consumes him. The turmoil in his feelings towards her, when he does find her, and cares for her, protecting her from even his own Brothers, despite this being against his nature, is quite intense.

A great struggle of love and hate ensues, just a constant roll of angst (letting go and then pulling back). What’s worse, is that Zsadist’s  noble, pure, self sacrificing BEAUTIFUL identical twin (Phury – a “Brother”), is also deeply in love with her (and you’ve still got to deal with that damn crazy “Lesser” stalking her to get her back). If you’re up for the see-saw, crazy love triangle, the reward is well worth the path that the reader has to travel to get there.

Some of my favorite parts:

When Bella tries to cuddle Zsadist while they sleep.

“He jerked away from her-and fell off the mattress, landing on his ass”

When Bella comes into her “needing” period – think of it as a female dog in heat – it’s the male dogs that go crazy (the other Brother’s reactions are simply hilarious)

“Holy shit” someone said with a groan. “This can’t be happening” another growled.

Here is the entire series reading order list: J.R. Ward – The Black Dagger Brotherhood Series Reading Order: