Lover Avenged by J.R.Ward – Contemporary romance with hyper masculine vampires.
“Wait, FyreHaar reads romance novels?”
Why yes, the great fiery one indulges in some quality H.E.A. action.
Lover Avenged is J.R. Ward’s first hardcover novel. Her “Black Dagger Brotherhood” series has been wildly popular and her publishers opted to move her into the hardback market. The last entry in the series, Lover Enshrined, was the nadir of the series so far. It was the last novel dealing with one of the original members of the brotherhood and it felt forced. I think it would have been better if she had worked on it a bit longer. As it was, the core story was far less interesting than the side plots of which there were too many.
In Avenged she brings the series back up to par. There is still one central story with three or four subplots but they are all robust. In some of her earlier works I have wanted to skip either the main story or the sub-stories to get to more engaging material. No so with this book. The plot is well paced; as the story lines progress they cross and intertwine and Ward moves us between them smoothly.
Rehvenge is a vampire turned night club owner and drug dealer. He is also half sympath. Sympaths are a sub-species of vampire that feeds off of negative emotions and are reviled by the general vampire populace. Rehvenge is being blackmailed. His extortionist knows that he would be sent to the sympath colony if his lineage were made public. Rhevenge is slowly killing himself because he can no longer bear to pay the price of his blackmailer’s silence.
Ehlena is a pure blooded vampire, a member of the aristocracy. Her family has fallen into poverty because her father suffers from schizophrenia and their assets have been reduced to nothing by his mismanagement. She is working as a nurse and providing care for her father. Rehvenge is one of her patients at the vampire clinic (it’s not as if they can just go to a human doctor). As he is falling deeper into his suicidal fugue she is the only one who can reach him.
Ehlena and Rehvenge embark on an ill advised relationship. When his blackmailer discovers his relationship with her, shit really hits the fan. At the same time, evil forces are working to destroy the entire vampire race and our hero and heroine must fight to save themselves and each other. Will it all work out? Will the evil Lash kill everyone? Will Rehvenge be banished to the sympath colony? It’s a romance novel, of course it all works out!
It’s campy, it’s cheesy, it’s sexy and everything turns out well but not perfectly for our hero couple. A welcome return to top form for a popular author. You don’t get paranormal smut better than this.
-fh