The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12) Review

The King by J.R. Ward



Synopsis

J.R. Ward's # 1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood continues as a royal bloodline is compromised by a grave threat to the throne.

Long live the King…

After turning his back on the throne for centuries, Wrath, son of Wrath, finally assumed his father’s mantle--with the help of his beloved mate. But the crown sets heavily on his head. As the war with the Lessening Society rages on, and the threat from the Band of Bastards truly hits home, he is forced to make choices that put everything--and everyone--at risk.

Beth Randall thought she knew what she was getting into when she mated the last pure blooded vampire on the planet: An easy ride was not it. But when she decides she wants a child, she’s unprepared for Wrath’s response--or the distance it creates between them.

The question is, will true love win out... or tortured legacy take over?



Lisa's Review - 5 out of 5 stars

It seems to have taken forever but finally the series has come full circle and we are back to Wrath, the reason I fell in love with the Black Dagger Brotherhood on the first place! As much as I have fallen in love with the other Brothers throughout this series, I always have looked out for glimpses of Wrath in the other books, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on The King and delve back into the lives of Wrath and Beth.
The Band of Bastards are making progress into dethroning Wrath. When they finally succeed, Beth discovers the real reason her husband is no longer King, and sets about trying to fix it. But in the meantime, she has also been spending a lot of time with the Chosen Layla in the hopes of bringing on her Needing and the desire for her to have a baby grows every day. Unfortunately, her husband doesn't feel the same.

Throughout The King, I loved absorbing into Wrath and Beth's lives. Even though they are vampires, it is nice to see that the King and his Queen manage to have realistic arguments, ones that had me struggling who I agreed most with. I understood Beths desire to have a baby, and I understood the reasons for Wrath not wanting a child.
The life of Trez is also delved into in this book, as with all the books, we have the main focus of the story, as well as the ones on the side line. Now we know more about Trez and his upbringing, and also understand more the relationship between Trez and his brother iAm, and the relationship between Trez and the Chosen Selena deepens and I am looking forward to see if those two get a happy ever after, too.
Sometimes I dislike it when the side characters take away from the main ones and finding myself rushing through pages to try and get to the ones I really want to read, and although I like the Shadow brothers, I found myself doing that when it came to Assail and Sola. They have been involved in the last few books, and also feature in this one. It is a good story line to read, the only trouble I have is trying to work out where it fits into these stories. Hopefully there will be more to come and their involvement in the series will become more obvious.
I look forward to the next instalment and seeing how it develops some of the story lines. Xcor and Layla is the one I am most interested in seeing how it pans out. I find myself disliking Layla more and more as the books go on, her sneaking out of the Brotherhood mansion to secretly meet Xcor while she is pregnant with Quinns baby is irking at me!
The one and only downside I have with this book is that after all Beths efforts, (and I try to do this without giving away the ending!), that seemed to drag out for almost three quarters of the book, everything towards the end happened so quickly and left me frustrated as I wanted more detail!
That said it still made me love my favourite vampires even more than I already do, I laughed, I cried and I felt angry, but most of all when I finished the last page I needed more asap! That's the sign of an amazing book, in my opinion!

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