Title: Dark Lover
Author: J. R. Ward
Genre: Paranormal
Killing me softly with this tome: Chapters 10 through 16 of J.R. Ward’s Dark Lover
Oy. Another six chapters. The action’s heating up and the plot takes a few odd turns, but the characters are pretty much stuck in place. There’s pretty much no characterization beyond “Beth is bold and sexy” and “Wrath is a total bad-ass.” These characters are flatter than a stretch of Interstate in Indiana.
Let’s pick up where we left off…
Chapter Ten: Mangled metaphors on aisle six
Beth lies in bed near the end of her steamy Wrathful night. She looks over her partner dreamily.
“He was huge. And stacked.”
Mm hm.
“He had no hair on his torso or arms and legs at all…even down there…why he’d go the Full Monty with a razor was a mystery.”
Mmmmmmkay.
“His abdomen was ribbed as if he were smuggling paint rollers under his skin.”
Now that’s romantic. Six points for proper use of the subjunctive mood, but only one for metaphorical flourish.
The two of them make small talk, and it’s evident already that they’re falling for one another. Wrath pledges his vigilant protection, and Beth assumes he’s a bodyguard sent by Butch to keep her safe. Before he goes, Wrath schedules a tête-à-tête at Darius’s house and promises Beth that Bill Riddle will pay for what he’s done to her.
Back at the ranch, Rhage gives Wrath a little good-natured manly ribbing about his late-night rendezvous the previous evening. “You got some grind tonight, didn’t you?” After a little more teasing Wrath threatens his friend with bodily harm, at which point Rhage relents in yet more stilted “gangsta” slang: “I’m feeling you.”
Okay, if all of these guys are supposed to be centuries old, why in the hell do they talk like twenty-something bangers? Or at least how forty-something (sorry, J.R., I’m just taking a wild guess…you might want to update your own Wikipedia page) romance writers imagine twenty-something bangers probably talk? Shouldn’t they be doing the dozens in Old High German or something like that? How frickin’ cool would that be?!?
“Rhage, du nalles unwan ein waldesil bist!”
Sadly, it is not to be.
We end the chapter with Mr. X, who’s dragged Cherry Pie’s body into a filth-encrusted alleyway to serve as vampire bait. (Did you think I was kidding before?) The plan works. Kinda. After pelting the poor vampire who shows up to the smorgasbord with ineffectively weak tranquilizer darts, Mr. X flees the scene. Back to the drawing board.
Chapter Eleven: This is a public service announcement on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control
Beth awakens. “With the dawn’s arrival the hot night’s mystery had faded, and she was forced to face what she had done. Unprotected sex with a total stranger was one hell of a wake-up call.”
Props for social consciousness, J.R. Little does Beth know that STDs are the least of her worries.
She sets about her day, breakfasting on Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers (I wish I were kidding) and finding herself more and more sensitive to the sunlight. She’s off to the police station to see what she can get from Butch on the big doin’s in the downtown dens of deceit and destruction.
“Oh my God, this is Mary,” she tells Butch when she’s shown a picture of Cherry Pie. It appears that Ms. Randall and Ms. Pie (née Mary Mulcahy) were once residents at the same orphanage. Small world! Butch tells Beth that evidence indicates the same culprit in both known murders: “Another throwing star.” The plot thickens.
Especially once Beth thanks Butch for sending her a guardian palooka and he reacts as we’d expect him to: “Friend? What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t send anyone over to your place.” Um. Yeah.
Beth scratches her plan to meet Wrath that night from her mental to-do list.
Back at Darius’s house, Wrath thinks back on the night before, not without another ham-fisted product placement on behalf of an American automaker. After leaving Beth’s place he’d joined Vishous (in his Escalade!) in an attempted rescue of the vampire Mr. X had beaten from the bushes that night. The poor kid (“he’d been six months out from his transition”) hadn’t made it. Oh, the humani…er…vampirity! Wrath tries to clear his thoughts by listening to Jay-Z’s The Black Album (now available at Tower Records!).
The last several pages are a pretty dull recounting of Mr. X’s double date with a pair of students from his dojo, the now-famous Billy Riddle and another we’ll know only as “The Loser.” Mr. X. picks them up in his Hummer (of course) and takes them off to…Laser Tag! Ah ‘80s, may you forever live!
Chapter Twelve: Beth uses the Internets
“Boy, the Internet was handy.” Beth pulls a Nancy Drew on the address Wrath had given her the night before and finds little useful information. The house is in Fritz’s name, but despite the house’s fame (it’s on the National Register of Historic Places!) no one knows much about it. She calls the cops, hoping to get a hold of Butch, but he’s out. Luckily he calls her back in a little while.
“Butch O’Neal’s voice was a gravel pit, she thought. In a good way.” Not in the suck-you-under-and-suffocate-you way, I guess.
Meanwhile Wrath can’t get Beth out of his mind. He wonders if she’s his pyrocant, which Ward defines as a vampire’s “critical weakness.” I guess my pyrocant is Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream.
Even if she’s a weakness, Wrath can’t let her go…after all, who’d look after her? One by one he mentally eliminates his brothers from the list of potential protectors. Rhage would only sleep with her, and Vishous is too messed up. And Zsadist?…out of the question. Nope, it’s gotta be Wrath.
Before the chapter ends we learn a little bit more about Vishous: he’s mildly clairvoyant, but the futures a bit hazy. (Later we’ll learn that, as has been hinted at before, Rhage can channel a demon so terrible it makes Trogdor look like Teddy Ruxpin. But we’ll save that for later…)
Chapter Thirteen: The green-eyed monster
Butch and Beth, having just enjoyed a lovely night together, are about to part company while Wrath looks on from afar. He sees Butch’s car (“a nondescript American sedan”…but what make is it? What model?!!), and he could smell Butch’s lust (“through the sedan’s glass and steel”). His temper flares more hotly still when Butch mans up and plants one on Beth’s lips.
He’s not a bad kisser, it turns out, but Beth feels nothing real. “I’m not doing it for you, am I?” Butch asks. And then, “What’s up with you an men? Do you, ah, do you like them? Us, I mean?” Smooth, Butch. Smooth. Further evidence that every man in this book talks like a steroid-addled high school jock.
Alas, Butch, her heart’s been claimed already. Very easily, I might add.
I can’t help but interject, having at this point read far more of this book than the first thirteen chapters, that I found the lack of romantic tension in this book pretty unappealing. Now, the current chapter ends on page 109, not even a third of the way in, so you might think there are plenty of twists and turns awaiting our would be paramours as they struggle to reconcile their unholy love for one another. Ah, but you’d be wrong! As we’ll see later, every potential obstacle to their love’s requital falls down faster than a Star Trek extra in a bright red shirt.
Chapter Fourteen: Another short chapter, in which our two lead lunkheads fight over the female
The last chapter closed as Butch spied Wrath making his way toward Beth across her apartment complex’s lawn. Quicker than you can say “Bela Lugosi” Butch is out and after Wrath. “Police! Halt!”
Yeah, that’ll work.
Butch takes Wrath into awkward custody and pats him down, revealing a wad of cash and a sample of every weapon known to man, and probably a few that aren’t. After roughing Wrath up a little bit, Butch hauls him off at gunpoint, bound for the station. Before he’s shoved into Butch’s car, Wrath tells Beth why he’d come to her: “your father sent me.”
Chapter Fifteen: Twenty-seven signs you may be a vampire
Down at the stationhouse, Wrath turns the tables on Butch. He frees himself of his handcuffs and gets Butch in a chokehold. Even as he strangles the life out of Butch’s body, Wrath can’t help but be impressed: “the human’s total lack of fear was remarkable. The cop had been pissed to get jumped, and he’d fought back admirably, but he’d never been scared.” Do I sense a buddy cop film coming on?
Beth shows up just in time to plead for Butch’s life, which Wrath grants. As Butch struggles to regain his strength, Beth and Wrath have it out with one another.
“You’re a killer and a liar,” she shouts at him.
“At least you got the first part right,” he replies. And then he shows her he knows what she’s going through by listing all of the symptoms of an imminent transition: “You’ve been really hungry lately, haven’t you? Hungry, but not gaining any weight. And tired. So very tired. Your eyes have been stinging, too, especially in the daytime, right? You’re looking at raw meat and wondering what it tastes like. Your teeth, the upper ones in front, have been sore. Your joints ache, and your skin feels tight. And it’s getting tighter.”
And so on.
What’s next? “Your lumbago’s acting up. You’ve been craving gummi gears, but only on Thursdays. You have a strange obsession with Bob Barker, and want to lick the TV screen every time he implores you to spay and neuter your pets…”
Everything Wrath describes is spot on, and Beth buys his bit well enough to go with him back to Wayne Manor.
What will she there find?
Join me for the next installment, as I make my way into Chapters Sixteen through Twenty!
ROFL great Old High German 😀
And: The language issue was always even more jarring to me than the sentence structure: Ward says, as far as I remember, the vhamphies speak an old language that is a mixture of Old Ugrian languages and Old French or something. And then they “talk like twenty-something bangers, or at least how forty-something romance writers imagine twenty-something bangers probably talk” – lol! – and all the “old language” that is quoted never comes close to anything Romanic or Ugric. I frequently stopped reading, thinking “why bother with an Old Language at all?” Why not Old English, as the “runes” seem to suggest? Why didn’t she ask someone who knows something about languages?
land32 = a German word! 🙂 = in English: country 32 (number none English-speaking countries, where readers actually notice at once that the language issues make no sense at all? Well, the number is to small…)
Old High German + Star Trek red shirts + lumbago, gummi bears, and Bob Barker = perfection.
I only made it through 2 or 3 of the BDB before being completely unable to waste any more time on its ridiculousness. Though I do enjoy Ward in person; she’s pretty funny, both ha ha funny and for real funny. Still, the gansta rap speak and product placement in these books made me roll my eyes so much they nearly rolled straight outta my head. But Doc T’s reviews makes me wanna read this one again if only to christen the drinking game.
Rock on Doc T!
I would LOVE to see what the good Doc would do with Naked in Death, or a Suzanne Brockmann.
Oh, please! I would love to see what Doc Turtle would do with Brockmann’s ‘Force of Nature’.
Really, I think the Coyote was smarter 😉
I think when all is said and done, this is one of those reviews that should be consolidated into a single review type thing and put somewhere for download. This is the most fun I’ve had over a book in a long time.
Doc’s last review mentioned the truth about this series – it isn’t romance. It is boy’s adventure novel but those don’t sell. To sell, you have to have a romance, so the romance is just thrown on top. But the continuing adventure story keeps sucking me in, when I was reading about Rhage, I was dying to know more about Z. But during Zsadist’s book, I wanted to know about Vishous and Butch. Each book is a disappointment for the main characters, but the backstories just keep getting me. Damn you, JR Ward.
Actually, I can really picture this as a comic book.
I’m sorry, but when I read any of her “street” dialogue, all I can think about is this:
Ava, I’m prompted to ask: Did you by any chance attend Meredith College in Raleigh, NC? It’s required there that every freshman memorize the first 20 lines of the Canterbury Tales in Old English. It’s been two decades, and I can still recite the thing.
On a different note, I’m thoroughly enjoying the review.
OH, I am SOOO excited about not reading this book! Reading Doc Turtle, though, that’s a different bucket of paint. Any chance he can quit his day job and just do reviews?
You know, after reading over my earlier response, I need to qualify something…
Most fun I’ve had over a book *I’ve Read* in a long time! It’s like #romfail from a guy’s perspective. 😀
And I agree, Doc Turtle needs to quit his day job and just do these reviews.
But… Whard tried on some very fucked up version of olde english in Z’s book I think and omg it made me want to rip the book to pieces.
I’d give a lot for Doc Turtle to review my fave book of 2009 so far, Nalini Singh’s Angels’ Blood.
True, but at this point Beth is freaked out that she slept with him knowing nothing about him.
Besides … Wrath probably figures that if he kills her cop friend in front of her it’ll be at least a week before she’ll drop her panties for him again.
Also, third or fourth the sentiment about Zsadist’s book, Lover Awakened, being the best of the bunch, with Lover Eternal coming in second.
OMG this review is HILARIOUS! I have never read any of the BDB books and do not plan to, but I find myself desperately wanting to read the next installment from Doc Turtle!
And whomever said Mr. X was like Wile E. Coyote…that is spot on!! I was just thinking this guy sounds like the most pathetic villain ever! Driving around in a Town & Country…if there is one vehicle that screams evil, it’s a Chrysler Town & Country. Sheesh.
Wait-wait-wait—a mixture of Ugric and *French!?!* WTF! I mean, I can see the whole Ugric/vampire/Hungary thing, but Urgic isn’t even a *language* – it’s a whole frickin’ branch of a family that’s not even Indo-european!!!
The completely different way that the Uralic family languages create structure would seemingly make it impossible to do anything other than pull in some French loan words, many fewer even than we in English have, and we are still a *Germanic* language. And then, those words would be agglutinated beyond all recognition.
Even that seems unlikely, since it takes generations of speakers to do even that much. I suppose she may make an argument for Creolization, but that’s also pretty far-fetched for a number of reasons.
Jee-zus! I hate when seemingly intelligent people don’t even do the most basic research.
*sigh*
Am I the only person in the world who thought Butch’s book, Lover Revealed, for all their corniness and their obnoxious slang and often preposterous non-plots, was the best of the bunch?
The first three were good, took me awhile to even get into the first one (though had I had Doc’s review to go by, I’d have ignored the warning signs just for the fun of reading it this way!)
Lover Unbound sucked on principle and the ending sent it into wallbanger mode for me and Lover Enshrined only garnered a few cursory skims. But LU ended my crack addiction to these books. I should have stopped at Butch’s.
I am a reformed Whardaholic, thankfully. But these reviews are a riot!
I started Dark Lover and couldn’t finish it. Doc Turtle made me see why I couldn’t finish it! His review is absolutely hilarious and right to the point.
Thank you so much for the laugh. There’s nothing better to wake up to in the morning. 😀
I hereby request a charter membership in the Doc Turtle fan club. We could supply a constant supply of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream in exchange for continuing these reviews (which are ten times better than the books themselves).
Now I am going to spend all day contemplating what my “pyrocant” is.
Ok, I haven’t read this, but the end of your post reminds me a bit of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s books – centuries old badass Dark Hunters who talk like they’ve been watching too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I can usually deal with that when I’m reading the books, but I happened to get one in audio form and it was tough listening to the reader try to balance “snappy modern dialogue” and “vaguely European accent.”
That’s what got me. That and a mental image of Teddy Ruxbin burninating the peasants.
I seem to read more urban fantasy that traditional fantasy these days, and the quotes of dialogue from BRB that I see here still sound terrible.
So many funny lines, but this is the one that put me on the floor. Thanks, Doc, for the fabulous reviews.!
And just to weigh in on the other side of the discussion—Sunshine by Robin McKinley. For my money, the best vampire book EVER. With (alas!) no sequel.
“Rhage, du nalles unwan ein waldesil bist!”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAA!!!
I don’t know why, but I just thought that was insanely funny.
I had considered starting this series, based on the crazy fan base it seems to have inspired I was curious…but your reviews have entertained me…and convinced me that I would not, could not read these books. Not here. Not there. Not anywhere.
BTW it’s Thursday.
And I find myself craving gummi bears.
Oh dear.
Sadly what it really is, is the best 3/4 of a vampire book EVER. McKinley (who I love) doesn’t rap up several important threads, leaving them dangling for the sequel that will never come (as is sooo her style; damn her). I was so pissed when I finished that book . . . cause I know in her heard she’s thinking it’s the first in a series, but I also know that the odds of her ever going back and finishing the series in her head are slim and next to none. *sigh* But the world building is kickass and the characters are fantastic. McKinley can WRITE!!!
In reference to the language and the question as to how centuries-old vampires and others would speak like modern twenty-somethings (or try to anyway), maybe it’s because the characters are trying to blend into the present and have to learn the lingo? I’ve never really thought about the language in the BDB series or the Dark-Hunter series but I would think that if I was trying to blend into modern society I would try to make sure I looked and acted the part. Just not too hard.
Funniest. Line. Ever.
Ms. Ward to her publisher:
I am seeing a bunch of vamps sitting around singing Jay-Z’s cover of Its a Hard Knock Life from Annie.
Publisher to Ms. Ward: Win!
The Public to Ms. Ward and Publisher: Fail.
@Kalen Hughes: We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. I like the dangling threads at the end of Sunshine. While I would have loved a sequel, I know better than to expect it. Frankly, from what I read of and about the various paranormal series out there, I’d rather she stopped with that book than drag it out into seemingly endless and inferior sequels.
I’ve been trying to think of a diplomatic way to say this – then I remembered where I was. 😉
A brother can only be so badass when he speaks Valley Girl gangsta.
Really? You like them? Not, I’m willing to accept them, cause the book rocks so hard otherwise (which I’ll totally agree to).
To me the book felt unfinished. I mean it has an unresolved freaken love triangle. As much as I loved the book (and I’ve bought multiple copies to give to friends, so I really did love it), I still have a vaguely unsatisfied feeling about it . . . which I wouldn’t have if I knew there was going to be a sequel. And having read everything McKinley’s written, I’d trust her to give us more books in the Sunshine world without degenerating into LKH territory . . .
Scratching my head over this one. If it’s so freakin’ bad, how come everywhere else I go, readers are drooling over this series, and JR Ward in general?
Although I do love hanging out amongst sane and intelligent readers here on SBTB, I always find it makes me wary about easing back into the manuscript the next morning.
A pleasure as always, ladies and gentlemen.
I had the same question after I got suckered into buying
by people I normally trust . . .
@SonomaLass: All this talk about Sunshine got me to hop over to McKinley’s site to see what she’s up to . . . no sequal to Sunshine, but I’d missed her 08 book Chalice. Now it’s on my eBook reader and ready for my train ride home. Yea!!!
Dang it! I did it again. WHY do I hit the quote button when I mean to italicize? WHY?!!!
Spam Word: Kept58
…Kept 58 snorts of laughter contained while reading analysis. Thanks, Doc!
I’ve never read anything by this author, and doubt I will, but oh, these reviews SLAY me. Please, please, keep them coming Doc Turtle!
Where is Buffy when we need her? By Doc Turtle’s comments, Wrath really needed to be staked by the third chapter (which is about where I decide whether a book is worth finishing). Though then we would have missed out on all the lovely snarkiness.
I’m feeling you DocTurtle…true.
I started this series, & managed to get to chapter 7 of book 1 before it hit the bathroom wall, & then I aimed it into the Oxfam box. And I’ve never been tempted to return to JR Ward, despite the OTT reviews of the FG’s
Dearest DT, are you sure you’re not the person who coined the ” …Then Buffy staked Edward . The end.”
slogan ?
Magnificent revue dear boy, haven’t stopped laughing all day !
@Nifty we had to memorize the first 20 lines of The Canterbury Tales my senior year in high school – 1983 – West Carteret HS – Morehead City NC. We received extra credit for reciting it in class. I can still quote the first couple of lines.
Fear not. She has legions of rabid fangirls who fawn and squee endlessly over her. Her ego should be able to take some snark.
You’re not alone. Revealed was the pinnacle of the series IMO. Each book in the series improved on the previous book until that book, then the series went downhill fast.
Because, even though they’re over-the-top, illogical, and often silly, they become addictive. While you’re reading it, you know it’s crap, but you can’t look away. Sorta like a train wreck, or eating potato chips or M&M’s. I can’t explain it; it just is. I liked Dark Lover, but wasn’t really impressed, or even hooked. I kept going to see what all the fuss was about. Each book built the story more and sprinkled more crahck into the mix. I even liked the much-maligned Lover Unbound. Lover Enshrined sent me to BDB Anonymous while it sent Phury to AA. After Lover Avenged I found salvation. I am completely cured of my crahck addihction.
Well, when you put it that way, the book does sound pretty bad, doesn’t it?
Crahck is Whahck.
My friends, rest assured that I am having a ball writing these reviews, and I’m enormously gratified by your response to them, but sadly I fear I’ll not be able to snark the entire series.
It’s a time issue more than anything else: I put about 15-20 minutes per chapter (not counting the reading…which is probably about 10-12 minutes per chapter), and if each (of the seven?) volumes in the series has as many chapters as DL (55 + Epilogue and Lexicon), we’re looking at about…carry the 3…divide by the square root of pi…200 or so hours of readin’ ‘n’ writin’.
Classes start in a week and a half, and I’ll be slowing down, but I hope to finish most of the Dark Lover reviews before then.
At that point I’ll be looking for something else to read and review for you all, and I’ve already suggested to SB Sarah that perhaps my next assignment should be a book about which y’all are legitimately curious how I’ll react: both Ward and Chase were pretty predictable, but maybe there’s a book out there that could go either way, about which women might rave but men might shrug their shoulders and say “meh”?
Or you can feed me some more crhack, pop the popcorn, and keep reading snark. It’s all good.
Thank you for all of your positive comments, I really appreciate your feedback. I appreciate the work of all of you who are authors, especially those of you who are able to take it on the chin every now and then. I have deep respect for professional writers, and for all of the creativity you bring to the world. Keep it up!
P.S.—yet79: It feels like yet 79 more chapters of Ward to make it through…