Product Description
Butch O’Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard living, ex-homicide cop, he’s the only human ever to be allowed in the inner circle of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And he wants to go even deeper into the vampire world to engage in the turf war with the lessers. He’s got nothing to lose. His heart belongs to a female vampire, Marissa, an aristocratic beauty who’s way out of his league. If he can’t have her, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers… When Butch sacrifices himself to save a civilian vampire from the slayers, he falls prey to the darkest force in the war. Left for dead but found by a miracle, the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back, though even her love may not be enough to save him…
K. Gilligan @ 5:42 pm
After every Black Dagger Brotherhood Novel I read, I find myself with a new favorite character. After Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 1) it was Wrath, after Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 2) it was Rhage, and after Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 3) it was Zsadist. So I suppose I really shouldn’t have been surprised when upon finishing this novel I decided that Butch is my new favorite character.
“Lover Revealed” by J.R. Ward did not disappoint me in the least. Be warned that if you haven’t read the previous three books in this series, that you will not understand a large portion of the story.
The story focuses on Butch, and his relationship with Marissa. We also learn quite a bit about his past. There were moments were I was a bit teary-eyed so be prepared. I also loved seeing the friendship that Butch has with the rest of the Brothers. And I was glad to see that young John was back in this book, even though he had not completely recovered after earlier events (who can blame him?).
I’m already looking forward to the next addition to the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels. At the end of this story we get a small sneak peek of Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 5). Keep up the good work J.R. Ward, I can’t wait to read more!
Lauren Sophie @ 6:51 pm
I admit that when I read the first novel in this series a while back, I wasn’t overly impressed. I thought it was just ok, and I didn’t intend to read any more Black Dagger books. But then a lot of people recommended the later books to me and I found myself excited about giving this series another chance. And I’m so glad I did. Although I’m not super-devoted, ardent fan– i.e. I don’t think I’ll be spending time on any message boards discussing the novels in depth– I thought Lover Revealed was a very satisfying read with a compelling central romance and tons of intrigue, passion and great dialogue. In fact, I think that because my expectations weren’t sky-high, I found this book even more enjoyable and worth the money/time than I anticipated.
The story has already been summarized by many other reviews, so I won’t do so again here. But I found Marissa and Butch’s coming together to be very sweet and sexy. Many have said they didn’t necessarily feel their connection, but I certainly did. They had an intense, immediate attraction, first introduced in the initial book of the series, that developed into infatuation and then love. Marissa and Butch’s mutual loneliness at the beginning of the novel had me rooting for them to finally find each other again and once they did it was sweet, but full of the kind of angst and conflict needed to give the story its momentum.
A few things I liked: first, how expertly J.R. Ward weaves in secondary characters and subplots. This book does an especially good job of developing V’s character (his book is the next one and I can’t wait for it), including his sexual issues and deep loneliness. There are some homoerotic moments, as other reviewers have mentioned, but they’re pretty ambiguous, and overall the point of them seemed to be to show a) Butch and V’s intense friendship (very moving) and b) to set the stage for V to realize that he wants and craves real love and intimacy from a woman.
Also, I loved how, at 400+ pages, this book kept me engaged and left me feeling completely satisfied. I truly appreciate that the author releases new titles so quickly and keeps them packed with great storytelling and interwoven narratives.
There’s a lot of gritty suspense involving the Omega, Butch’s true nature is revealed (hence the title) and we see Wrath, Beth, Zsadist and Bella again– all of which kept me happily turning the pages.
I recommend this book to anyone who loves or simply likes this series. You can read it by itself, but it is better read as part of the series.
I was hooked from the first page and even though the darkness of these novels can sometimes feel a bit heavy, there are always sexy, romantic moments that balance them out. J.R. Ward is also an author you can trust to deliver plots and characters you can care about.
L. J Lewis @ 9:09 pm
You know, I’ve about had it with J.R. Ward’s urban vampire series. The first one was great, but every book since them has been the same book, same formula, and same issues, just with a different main character. In Lover Awakened, JR Ward introduced us to the Black Dagger Brother, hardcore vampire warriors out to protect their race from the evil Lessening Society, their mortal enemies. The Brothers are really manly men. Tattooed, leather-wearing, trash-talking, rap music at the dinner table kind of guys with the occasional missing limb. Then there is Butch, the human side-kick.
Poor Butch. He had a awful childhood, used to have a coke addiction, currently is an alcoholic, got kicked off the police force, and being the Brotherhood’s human mascot isn’t helping his self-esteem any either. Things get even worse for him even the Lessers kidnap him, beat him up, and put a ball of pure evil in his stomach. His blood and other unmentionable fluids start turning black and he starts gaining weird powers. While recuperating he meets back up with Marissa, the beautiful vampire aristocrat that is the jilted ex-wife of Vampire King Wrath. Butch has been pining away for her for several novels, as an unfortunate misunderstanding instigated by Marissa’s brother has him thinking she wants nothing to do with him.
The main problem with JR Ward’s series is that these books at just bloated with repetition. The same series of events seem to play over and over again until the novel reaches a resolution. It goes something like this: Brothers fight the lessers. Cut to Brotherhood trainee John polishing his fighting skills. Cut to lesser boss Mr. X plotting evil. Butch and Marissa have a misunderstanding because the woman won’t tell him anything. Back to Mr. X plotting Evil. Butch gets drunk and pines for Marissa. Back to Mr. X again. Brothers fight lessers again. Butch and Marissa have another misunderstanding which sends him back to the bottle again. Back to John. And it seems to go on like this for four hundred and fifty pages.
I am seriously starting to hate the lessers and how much time is spent on them. As villains they are totally ineffective. Compared to the Brothers, they are like the minions on a Saturday morning cartoon. They have superior numbers, but not the skills to back it up. The Brothers mow through them every time, and all Mr. X can do is shake his fist and say “Curses! I’ll get you next time!”
Another fatal flaw of the series is that while Ward usually creates interesting heroes, her heroines are practically non-entities. Marissa might as well be a blow-up doll for all the impression she makes. Scratch that, she does make impression but it isn’t a very good one. The woman has a talent for pushing Butch away, not explaining why, and them wailing to herself that no man wants her. A practical misunderstanding on legs is Marissa. I wanted to give this woman a big slice of clue cake the entire novel. Butch isn’t that great of a leading man himself. It seemed like the entire novel he was either drunk, sick, or beaten black or blue. I couldn’t help but think that Ward was more interested in Vishous, one of the other Brothers, than she was in Butch.
I wish Ward would ease up on the urban slang. This book practically needs you to be at UrbanDictionary.com to decipher it at some points. If there is a slang term for anything, Ward is going to use it place of the proper word. The made-up vampire language is also starting to grate on me. Ward takes English terms and starts adding random h’s and z’s and calls it a new language. Seclusion becomes sehclusion and fearsome becomes phearsome. I dohn’t knohw zwhy buht it izs zstahrting to ahnnohy me. I think it’s because in my head I always picture the Brothers saying those words like I imagine Goofy from Disney cartoons might.
I’m just burned out on the Brothers, I guess. I think I’m giving Ward one more chance to add some variety to the series or I’m writing it off.
Neker @ 11:02 pm
Ward has officially boosted herself into my favorite author of all time status (coming from someone that knocks down 3-4 books a week–that’s a pretty high honor). I thought Lover Revealed was fabulous, although, I think the last one with Zsadist is still my favorite so far. I can’t believe Ward has managed to pull off this many books without loosing her touch, and I hope she continues on her streak.
In LR, the reader finally gets to see something good happen to poor Butch. Butch has been with us since book one and always seemed to be pushed to the sidelines, left behind, or passed over for something or someone better. Then he gets captured by Lessers and just before they nearly beat him to death, Mr. Evil himself, puts a piece of himself in Butch to contaminate him. They leave him broken and dying in the woods to be found by the Brotherhood. Of course, his best bud, V, finds him and brings him home. Of course, there is soooo much going on this book. Marissa and Butch make up, fight, make up, fight, make up (did I mention fight, yet? Yes, oh, okay). There there is the council, John (coming to terms with Tohr’s disappearence and Tohr’s wife’s murder), V’s struggle with loneliness, and much more.
If you have not read the previous books in this novel, (What do you mean you have not read the previous books? Get your buns moving and go get them! You don’t know what your missing! Why are you still here? Get out of here;-), then you will not enjoy this one fully. I suggest you start at the beginning.
By the way, for those of you that didn’t read the preview in the back of the book…its V’s turn next go round! YEAH!
Helen Hancox @ 11:45 pm
J R Ward’s “Black Dagger Brotherhood” series is a fantastic read. Although the subject matter (vampires) is hardly original there’s something about the earthiness of her writing style which is fresh and interesting in this often tired genre. The Black Dagger Brotherhood are vampires who protect the others of their race (civilians) against the ‘lessers’, ex-people without hearts who exist to kill vampires and are ruled by the Omega. The previous three stories have focused on members of the Brotherhood and their discovery of their mates, although with several other side-characters introduced.
“Lover Revealed” is different from the previous books. Not in terms of writing style (J R Ward’s marvellous turn of phrase is still there, there’s a huge amount of earthy Anglo-Saxon and fairly graphic descriptions – this is not a book to lend to your granny) but in terms of hero. This time we’re following the trials and tribulations of Butch, the human ex-cop and roommate of Vishous, one of the Brotherhood. At the end of the last story Vishous tricked Butch into drinking a cup of his blood – Vishous didn’t know why he had to do it, he just did, and it becomes clear in this story what that was about. Butch has always existed somewhat on the sidelines of the Brotherhood; not being a vampire they don’t let him fight with them but he has some advantages in that he can go about in daytime. He’s hardly a normal human, though, being very strong, rather self-destructive and with enough of a death wish that he was able to stand up to the vampires initially, thus to be accepted by their group. Right from the beginning Butch noticed Marissa but over several books their relationship has ground to a halt.
In “Lover Revealed” we learn much more about Marissa and her dissatisfaction with her life. Despite being the top of the aristrocracy she’s an outcast and has no real role in life now that Wrath is mated to Beth. In this story she and Butch are thrown together again but any relationship between them is never going to be simple – and then when Butch is captured and tortured by the lesser it seems that any future for them is impossible.
This book definitely felt like a continuation of a series. A new reader, coming directly to this story, might struggle to work out what’s going on. We also continue to learn more about John Matthew, the pre-transition vampire, and there are lots of references to events in previous books without them always being clearly explained. Rehvenge/The Reverend is becoming more clearly defined and it wouldn’t surprise me if he features more significantly in future books. The list of characters grows longer and longer, too, which could be confusing. And my one real niggle with this whole series continues of course – and that’s the cheesy names of the brothers. Zsadist, Vishous, Phury… doesn’t really work for me, but as that’s my only real complaint about these stories you can tell how much I like them!
The Scribe Virgin, the vampires’ deity, makes appearances again in this book. Sometimes I wonder if she’s a cheap plot trick, a Deus Ex Machina, especially at the end of Rhage and Mary’s story, “Lover Eternal” – in the story to deal with a fundamental problem in the plot: oh no, there’s something that’s not optimal for our love story, but poof the Scribe Virgin fixes it. In this novel there’s an even bigger example of that (although not entirely caused by the Scribe Virgin) which felt slightly like the author was cheating in the way that she got round a major stumbling point for the happy ever after, and yet it’s obviously something that’s been planned from the beginning as there are clues to it way back in book 1. In fact it becomes clear, reading these stories, that J R Ward has very strongly mapped out what’s going to happen with whom as the series progresses and that conscientious attention to detail is very much appreciated by this reader.
In short, if you liked the other novels in this series you’ll like this one. For me it didn’t quite hit the heights of Zsadist’s story (“Lover Awakened”) because that was an amazing work of psychology and healing of someone’s past wrapped up in a vampire love story. But there’s a huge amount of interesting stuff in this book, particularly in the friendship between Butch and Vishous and in the way that Marissa is able to change her life and her submissive nature and to strike out on her own. Definitely one to read!