Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood #5) Review

  Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood #5) by J.R Ward

  Synopsis

  In Caldwell, New York, war rages between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers-six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Now the cold heart of a cunning predator will be warmed against its will...

Ruthless and brilliant, Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, possesses a destructive curse and a frightening ability to see the future. As a pretrans growing up in his father's war camp he was tormented and abused. As a member of the Brotherhood, he has no interest in love or emotion, only the battle with the Lessening Society. But when a mortal injury puts him in the care of human surgeon, Dr. Jane Whitcomb compels him to reveal his inner pain and taste true pleasure for the first time-until a destiny he didn't choose takes him into a future that cannot include her...

Lisa's Review - 4.5 out of 5 stars

After feeling a tiny but let down by book 4 in the series, I had high hopes that this book was going to raise the bar back up to the standards of the first few books, and thankfully, it was so close...I was a little let down by one point, which I will get to later...but for now, the Black Dagger Brotherhood series is almost back to its best.

Book 5 takes us into the world of Vishous, who for the past few books has been struggling with his feelings for Butch, the cop who quickly became Vishous' closest friend and in his dreams, maybe more. All that changes though, when after being seriously injured leads Vishous to end up in hospital under the care of doctor Jane.

As well as seeing Vishous struggle to deal with his feelings for Jane while the original plan is to erase her memories of him to allow her to continue leading her life, a life that doesn't include vampires, we also get flash backs to when Vishous was a pretrans, and the horrific start to his vampire life which helps us to understand him even more. The horrific life Vishous led under the control of his father, The Bloodletter, is bad enough, until he then learns the identity of the mother he never knew, and the plans she has for his future, which make his love for Jane even more out of reach. Until one of his Brothers makes the ultimate sacrifice for him. Which leads to an eye watering turn of events.

I was enjoying the whole book and glad that the series had picked up from the last book, but the ending of Lover Unbound was highly emotional, with a somewhat shocking twist that left me crying, and that speechless at the turn of events.

Another part of the story that I enjoyed was the fact there was slightly more focus on John Matthews, the pretran with no voice. He has been included in the last few books, but for me, not enough, so to have even more of his story in this book was great, and I really hope he gets to the focus in one of the books in the series soon.

Okay, so for the reason this didn't quite hit 5 stars... as with all the other vampires so far, Vishous meets this strong, independent woman. I like these women, they don't come across as needy or weak. But as the story goes on, that is exactly what Jane becomes, and it is disappointing. And Bella, Zsadist's mate, comes across that way, too, even though she is pregnant and the risk of losing a vampire baby is high, she came across as a kickass vampire and now she just seems a little wet! I was loving these women who were tough enough to take on these great big hulking vampires, and even had hopes that maybe at some point there would be a separate book that focused on these strong women, so hopefully in the coming books these women seem to toughen up again!

Links

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/304027.Lover_Unbound

http://www.jrward.com/

Purchase Links

Amazon UK Lover Unbound: Number 5 in series (Black Dagger Brotherhood)

Amazon US http://www.amazon.com/Lover-Unbound-Black-Dagger-Brotherhood/dp/0451222350/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377511400&sr=8-1&keywords=lover+unbound

B&N http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lover-unbound-j-r-ward/1100315475?ean=9780451222350