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!
I’d like to see the Doc do some Crusie … pretty much anything except “Anyone but You”. I’d hate to put the poor man off breasts. I swear if the woman mentioned her saggin’ 40 year old boobs one more time I’d have offer to pay for a lift just to shut her up.
Saggin’ 40 year old boobs?? *shocked look*
Um…never read her but that alone put me off. I’m 50+ with double D’s and mine still aren’t what I’d consider “saggin” as long as I do five minutes worth of specific exercise a day.
I get tired of the 20 year old heroine at times, but not all of us who are “more mature” are falling apart either!
Doc, I can appreciate the time you put into these reviews. I would be sad if they stopped, but I can stand to wait 😀
Spam Word: for93…for 93 days plus if I have to…
Crusie’s got some good stuff. A lot of the ladies in her books are smart, independent and sassy. Almost everyone I know who’s read the book “Bet Me” absolutely loves it. I personally really like “Fast Women” and both her colabs with Bob Mayer. Crusie’s one of my favorites, but “Anyone but You” made me crazy. The hero was almost too good to true up until just about the end where he loses it briefly and acts like a jerk. The heroine worked my nerves through the whole book with her body image issues. First she doesn’t want him to see her naked, then she doesn’t want to have sex with him unless she’s wearing a special bra, and she’s constantly complaining about her old body and saggy boobs. I’m over 30, have had 3 kids, and am not in the best shape so I understand not always feeling like hot stuff, but come on! If you can’t stand for a man to see you naked, then you probably aren’t ready to be having sex with that man IMHO.
Seriously, I’m begging… try JD Robb’s Naked in Death. Futuristic romantic suspense. I think they are awesome. I’d LOVE to know your take.
*wipes away tears of laughter*
Ah, Doc Turthle, you are awesome!
TROGDOOOR! *heh*
I can hardly wait for the next installment.
Now, about what Doc should read next – Cruisie sounds great, and I’m thinking of either “Bet me” or “Faking it”
Personally, I’d like to see Doc tackling Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark! Paranormal Romance again, yes, but unlike Whard, her stuff is actually really well-written. Plus, the genre and tropes invoked will still leave Doc with plenty of snarkmaterial, but he will (hopefully) still enjoy reading it 😀
I’m torn between either Emma’s, Kaderin’s or Conrad’s book…
SB <3 SBPatrick aka DocT.
Having just finished “Bet Me”, I’d like to see DocTurtle’s opinion of it too. As I was reading it, and right afterward, I loved it. Now… the afterglow seems to be wearing off.
BTW, can anyone recommend a contemporary where the heroine doesn’t give a fig about shoes?
Jennifer Cruisie’s a great suggestion, but I’d love to see what DT thinks of The Island by Victoria Hislop.
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!!!
@kaetchen: …well, I didn’t read the books again, but in LE, when Rhage talks to Mary, the Old Language was described as something like a not clearly defined Old Hungarian (which makes sense in a vampire myth, as you say; and made me classify it as something Ugric) and Old French. This made me think WTF, because I just couldn’t imagine a mixture of languages from different language families – for the reasons you stated.
Plus, the nhamhes were said to come from that language, the English words (rage, vicious, fury, etc.) to be derived from them… To me, that makes no sense at all.
Exactly what I think!
—————————
Thank you Doc Turte, I wanted to rant about this since I read the 2nd BDB book
And I’d love to read more of your “Old High German” 😀
fitting spam word: research46
@Lizzie: Oh, Special K…now now the next time I read one of these I’m going to envision Seth Green on steriods.
@Nifty: Actually my senior English teacher made me memorize it in high school. But when I went to college I recited it for a Lit professor for fun and he was so impressed he told me I should major in Early English Lit.
@Lisa#2: Holy shit! Did you have Jackie Davis and her lunchbox purse too? I graduated in ‘01 (the year she retired) but she had us do it too, and I can also remember the first few lines. Oh I miss that teeny woman and her raunchy sense of humor…
…the first three lines in my comment above should have been a quote…
I beg for your forgiveness in advance. (I blame TheTurtle)
Maestro, cue the music or I’ll have a Warrant for your arrest…
Black Dagger Brotherhood Vamps…
She’s my cherry pie
shaking her ass
like a Dutch Boy(tm) surprise
tastes so good that she just might hafta die
Sweet Cherry Pie
Well, Drinkin, without subjects
drinkin without articles
drinking double shots
cause my fragments all alone
Drinkin for the nahmes
and drinkin for the slang
If they drop more name brands
I’ll be drinking all night
Yeah…
Yeah, yeah
Drinkin for the Beamer
Drinkin for the Hummer
Most peeps drink
cuz Tohrment used outtie
Drinkin right here
Cuz Marissa wanted Wrath to feed her
So Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Even though the Lessers
have done something quite atrocious
If Wrath broods long enough,
he’ll simply seem precocious
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
She’s my cherry pie
shaking her ass
like a Dutch Boy(tm) surprise
tastes so good that she just might hafta die
Sweet Cherry Pie
Oh yeah
She’s my cherry pie
Put a smile on your face
Ten Miles wide
With crack this good
bring a tear to your eye
Sweet cherry pie
That’s all for now, folks. Yes, your eyes will thank me but I can’t possibly finish this atrocity until DocTurtle posts more chapters. Chapters, chapters, chapters…
spamword: members85
Why yes I do believe Sarah & Candy should revoke my posting membership.
I think Sarah should send DocTurtle some Laura Kinsale next. For My Lady’s Heart, perhaps, or Flowers From the Storm.
Brilliant, AQ! And Doc Turtle, you are genius. Even my husband enjoyed the review, and he’s never read word one of the books. But after hearing me bust a gut, I had to share the Old German and red shirt references. His German-ancestry engineer self almost wet his pants.
I enjoy these books because of their sheer over-the-topness, not despite. Sometimes, I’m just in the mood to check my brain and the door and revel in the WTFery of someone else’s world. The wannabe-gangsta doesn’t pull me out of the story near as much as the product placement, though. And half the rap references fly right by since I only listen to First Wave on XMSirrius. Now, if these vamps were kickin’ it Depeche Mode style, we’d be in business. They’d look good in some black eyeliner, I’m thinking.
See, now up until Avenged, I would have said Z’s book was the best, because the angsty survivor story really got to me. And Avenged would have been the hands down favorite if Rev had stopped taking the drugs earlier and just wasted damned near everyone like they deserved. But hey, that might have ended the gravy train early for Ward.
@Lizzie – The Special K video is even funnier when you consider that Rhage is always sucking on a lollipop (Tootsie Pop!). I never knew if Ward intended some significance to the lollipops, but I think the Seth Green video is a good illustration of how it actually comes across.
I think I’ll be sad when Doc finishes the book.
@ Rachel: Maybe the lollipops are a Kojak reference?
Wonderful! Incidentally, my pyrocant = Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough as well. One of the many reasons I stopped after 2 books was a simple lack of concern for the characters. I just never cared about any of them.
Don’t even get me started on the “slang.” I just can’t even deal with it. LMAO!
These are the crahck of reviews. Thank you, Dhoc Turhtle!
Despite that fact that I really enjoy the BDB series (bad names and cheesy slang aside), I love all of the reviews on SBTB!
I would love to see the slang in Old German – I probably have about as much chance of figuring that out as I do the text-like abbreviations (BTW). Compared to that, things like “Er ist finster” would be a breeze. Keep the reviews coming!
I did try out the vampire name site. I have to say that I was hoping for something a little more exciting than my name with an extra H in it – maybe more along the lines of Shihv or or Sabhre. Just a suggestion…..
Can someone explain to me what lessers’ deal actually is? And what a shellan is?
From the Ward’s online glossary:
lesser n. De-souled human who targets vampires for extermination as a member of the Lessening Society. Lessers must be stabbed through the chest in order to be killed, otherwise they are ageless. They do not eat or drink and are impotent. Over time, their hair, skin and irises lose pigmentation until they are blonde, blushless and pale-eyed. They smell like baby powder. Inducted into the Society by the Omega, they retain a ceramic jar thereafter into which their heart was placed after it was removed.
shellan n. Female vampire who has been mated to a male. Females generally do not take more than one mate due to the highly territorial nature of bonded males.
kaetchen said:
My experience from studying and speaking Turkish, after having spent years speaking Italian and French, is that you are pretty much dead on. We could have a long debate about the relation between the Turkic languages and the Ugric languages, but suffice it to say that in modern Turkish there are handfuls of loan words from French, Italian and some of the other European language spoken by various groups that controlled Turkey after WWI. (Ottoman is another story and I don’t have any answers about that one yet.) Most of these words are nouns, in my experience. I can’t imagine trying to work them into the verbal structure. Just adding all of the sufixes for plurality, location, possession, direct/indirect object status is more than enough. Truly, the grammar is not compatible. So let me say that this facet of the BDB world—oh so crackalicious—definitely leaves me scratching my head. I’d much rather have the dozens in OHG.
Sorry for the long aside, but it’s hard to ignore such a language geek worthy issue… especially about languages and language families that I associate with in one form or another.
“Rhage, du nalles unwan ein waldesil bist!”
*dies*
OMGWTFBBQ! i love this shiz. docturtle, you rock. ih hamh tohtahlhlhy ghoingh hto read thhhhish jhust fhor theh nhamesh. but i have to say that i think the review is probably better than the book. my procant is chocolate, probably the same as a lot of the awesome bitches here