Book Review: Dark Lover, a novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward

Dark Lover by J.R. Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When you haven’t book reviewed a book in so long, in like a YEAR, and then you reread the book to do a book review…

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Caldwell, NY, where Brittany has totally forgotten about reviewing the first ever book of the Black Dagger Brotherhood and hasn’t book reviewed it in a LONG ASS TIME because she simply forgot. Oops. So she’s here to rectify that because reading the book twice as I did brought back memories and the fact that this book is so damned good that I want to read the rest of the series (which I will...after I get done with my other ones that I want to get to…)

Let’s start off with Wrath, the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood and basically the so called Blind King...but he really didn’t want the title of king. In fact, he liked being the leader of the brotherhood, and he really loves to fight. He’s the last of the pureblood vampires, and he wants to find the slayers and kill them for what they did to his parents. But when one of his warriors, a man named Darius, asks him to being his only daughter into their world, Wrath downright refuses to do it. He didn’t want to bring a woman he didn’t even know into their world, even though she’s about to go through the change.

But then Darius died and Wrath HAD to do it-even though he swore up and down and sideways and upways that he didn’t want to take his daughter from the life she knew into his world-there was no way in hell he wanted to do it. But then he scooped her place out and took a good look at her...and he fell in love with her, something he swore he didn’t want to do. Yes, they had great sex and all, but then when it became time to tell her who he was and who her father was and what she was about to be...well, it shocked the hell out of her.

And the queen to Wrath’s king’s name, you ask, is Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Randall, Darius’s daughter, who was a half human, half vampire woman living a normal human life before she even met Wrath, whom at the same time was supposedly mated to Marissa, but Wrath never even touched her, only for blood only, but when Beth came into the picture, all of that stopped, and yeah, it made Marissa mad, but then she met the human cop Butch…

Who tried to arrest Wrath after thinking that he was going to go in Beth’s apartment and hurt her, thinking that Wrath was a criminal (yeah, right) and gave her drugs as soon as Beth started going through the change, then becoming friends (like...besties) with Vishous/V...and also falling in love with Marissa and wanted to do it as slowly as possible after finding out that she’s a virgin and not wanting to hurt her.

When the lesser came and snuck around the house after making a deal with Havers and kidnapping Beth...that was the wrong thing to do, because Wrath felt like he wanted to tear the whole world apart just to find her. Which he did and got hurt really bad for it (it was after their wedding too, man, what the fuck) and Havers, the man that wanted to kill Wrath for hurting Marissa by trying to get Z to do it, only to find out that Z didn’t betray the brotherhood or the king, so he got the lesser to do it. So he worked and saved Wrath, who turned to his brothers and told them that he’s going to ascend the throne and let Tohrment run the brotherhood and also rebuild the vampire population, hurray!!!

I truly enjoyed this book, and I’m so sorry that I haven’t reviewed it the first time I read it, because OMG it was such a good book. Ten out of Ten stars for me, if I could give it that!!

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Book Review: Black Butler Volume 2 by Yana Toboso

Black Butler, Vol. 2 by Yana Toboso
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Volume Two of Black Butler opens up to a simple, normal day in the Phantomhive household, with Sebastian and the everyone else trying to get the house nice for some guests that were coming over the next day. Of course, with a whole bunch of shenanigans happening around the house, and with Tanaka drinking his tea, how can the party go off without a hitch?? It's up to Sebastian to put the party together and make sure it looks really nice for the party tomorrow.

And then the investigation about the famous killings around Whitechapel, which, to tell you the truth, oddly facinated me, mostly because yes, it happened in the Victorian Era (1888, to be exact) and also because I wondered what got into this Jack the Ripper's head when he killed those sex workers...anyway, I liked that they went around, trying to find out who did it, even went to see the Undertaker, who had to have a laugh before he even answered the question. When Sebastian made him laugh (how, I wanna know), that's when the Undertaker told Ciel what happened to the sex worker's body parts. After hearing the grim answer, Ciel told Sebastian to round up a list of suspects that could be doing all of the killing, and the person they thought was doing it was the Viscount Duritt.

So they went to one of the Viscount's parties (more of, they had to sneak in the party to catch him in the act) and, well, Elizabeth was there...so you know Ciel (dressed as a girl) had to run off each time she saw him. Ciel did have a moment alone with the Viscount, only for him to get knocked out by some drugs and then had to be blindfolded by the Viscount to be sold in a auction. But thank god Ciel called on Sebastian to save him, because the next morning, JACK THE RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN.

How???

Well that's a really good question...

Because while they were looking again, they found another one of Jack's supposed victims and went to Whitechapel to see if they can finally catch the one called Jack the Ripper...only to be stunned to find out that it's actually a grim reaper named Grell...and MADAME RED?! I was shocked to even read that (though I've seen the anime and it shocked me then as it shocked me now). Grell appearing as her true self has to be my favorite part of this manga, and her with her death scythe is pretty damned cool.

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Book Review: Black Butler volume 1 by Yana Toboso

Black Butler, Vol. 1 by Yana Toboso
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I decided to pick up some manga again, and decided to start with volume one with Black Butler. I'm honestly glad I did because I found myself missing Ciel and Sebastian and the crew. It is a really funny manga with some parts of it that reminded me of the anime (in which I need to watch part three of it) but other than that, I truely enjoyed it.

Black Butler is about a boy named Ciel Phantomhive who had made a deal with a devil he named Sebastian, and all funny sheanagians happen! Along with his other servants-Finny, Mey-Rin and Baldroy...who can't seem to do anything around the house! Finny is the gardener who destroys anything he can touch (but he's baby!), Mey-Rin is quite a klutz, and Baldroy...just can't cook (oof). All of them are going on adventures and solving cases, even fighting off the Italian mob after they kidnapped Ciel. There was also a fancy ball thrown by Ciel's fiancee, Elizabeth, and yes, she breaks Ciel's ring and he tries to pretend there's no attachment to it, but Sebastian somehow fixes it.

But that's just a day's work for Sebastian Michaelis, the butler of the Phantomhive manor, who is, sincerely, "One hell of a butler."

The artwork in the manga is very beautiful and I enjoyed every bit of it, and cannot wait to read more of this manga really soon!

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Book Review: Halfway to the Grave: A Night Huntress Novel by Jeaniene Frost

Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have read about a couple books of the Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost-One Grave at a Time and Up from the Grave-and had fallen in love with Cat and Bones as a couple. But reading book one and seeing how they met and how they fell in love, along with finding their first vampire together was a really good experience, in my case. I loved every bit of the action and how Cat and Bones worked perfectly together, and the ending kinda made me mad, but let me explain.

Halfway to the Grave is about a half-vampire, half human girl named Catherine “Cat” Crawfield, and she’s been hunting vampires for a while until she meets the beautiful but sexy Crispin Bones. Thinking he’s one of the vampires that she was looking for, she tricks him like she does most of her victims, and then winds up on the other side, when she wakes up and is caught by Bones instead, who thought that she was one of another vampire’s men, and thus the whole enemies to lovers trope happens between the two.

Bones trains Cat after hearing her story from her about how she was made, which is why she was hunting down all these vampires-because her mother got raped by one and she wants to find out who he is-and also because her mother really hates vampires and doesn't want her to go down an “evil” road and be a vampire. But all vampires can’t be bad, right? Especially when they are so good lookin’, sexy as hell, and can kick ass and take names? Right?

Well before long, Cat and Bones fall in love, and they team up to find a vampire named Hennessy, a vampire that is very vicious and evil at the same time. Well shit doesn't hit the fa until Cat’s grandparents are killed and her mother is kidnapped, and she and Bones goes and find Hennessey and kills him, but not before her mother finds out that she’s dating Bones and pretty much thinks that Bones had her in his “thrall” and was leading her down a path of evil, which is such bullshit.

Then she’s approached by Don from a Paranormal Unit, and was pretty much offered a job there in the hospital after she took out a bunch of vampires, including Hennessey, and also the governor (that part shocked the hell out of me, though). Basically, after breaking Don’s kneecap and scaring the shit out of Tate, she agrees on taking the job and protecting her mother, and even makes a few demands to make sure that she’s taking this job. In the end, she broke up with Bones (which pissed me off) in a note and just left him...like that. That made me so mad.

But in the end, I really did enjoy this and I’m glad that I picked this book up and read it, because now I have a new book boyfriend and a series I really want to complete reading.

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