J. R. Ward (1) (1969–)

In the second Black Dagger Brotherhood book, Mary Luce is dealing with a lot of issues. Aside from her leukemia returning, she volunteers for a suicide help hotline and meets John, an abused young man who can only communicate through sign language. Even though she and her friend Bella want to help him, Bella knows what John truly is and she contacts the Brotherhood for help.
When Rhage first meets Mary, he knows she’s different from any female he’s ever met. She calms his inner beast—the dragon tattoo on his back literally comes to life, takes over his body, and kills everything in its path—and he’s desperate for the bliss she gives him. Fighting and having sex releases the beast, but he’d rather fight than sleep around. After a century of meaningless flings, he wants something permanent. Unfortunately, he can’t control the beast when in bed with Mary, so he can’t sleep with her.
Mary is stubborn, willful, and wants to protect those she cares about. Her pain over the cancer, her low self-esteem issues, and her lack of trust in Rhage is all understandable and very sad. Rhage’s self-hatred eats away at him, and he’s determined to do whatever he must to keep Mary safe, even betray her. They have a big communication problem. She doesn’t share her pain about her past and the cancer, and he doesn’t tell her about his curse and the problems going on in the vampire world. Though Rhage gets upset with her, as he should, Mary often just accepts his half-truths and refusal to talk. I liked both characters—don’t get me wrong—but I had a hard time respecting them.
Even though I understood Rhage’s reasons and sympathized with him, I don’t like cheating. I thought what he and Mary needed to do in order to solve their intimacy problem was obvious, but they didn’t figure it out until the end of the book, after he cheats on her.
As with the last book, I found it hard to relate to the brothers. Yeah, they’re gorgeous, arrogant badasses, but they take the thug mentality too far. Also, I don’t understand their obsession with name-brand clothes. In fact, the brand name of every single outfit, including jewelry and luggage, that every character wore was always mentioned.
There are some unanswered questions, but they seem to tie directly into the next story. Yay, Z!
I noticed a few typos but nothing major. The writing is good, but there are some awkward word choices. For example, I interpreted the sentence “What’s doing?” as “What’s going on?”
Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to the next one.
4.5 Stars
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In this Black Dagger Brotherhood novella, Bella isn’t happy with her marriage. Zsadist still suffers from horrendous nightmares and thinks about his time as a blood and sex slave far too often. She gives him the space he needs, but he’s withdrawing from her and their infant daughter, Nalla. Though he’s protective of them, he no longer kisses Bella, and he refuses to hold or even touch his daughter. The rest of the Brotherhood and the shellans in the household adore Nalla, but Bella is prepared to leave Zsadist for good if he doesn’t shape up and be the hellren and papa Bella needs him to be.
This is such an emotionally charged story. Zsadist has grown a lot from his introduction in the first book, Dark Lover, and even more from his main story, Lover Awakened. He’s still on the road to recovery, but his fear is dragging him back to the darkness in his mind.
For first time readers, I really think you should read the prior books to understand this one. However, for readers of the series, you won’t be missing anything if you skip this novella. Still, I recommend it because it’s a sweet story. I love this couple!
5 Stars
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