Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward

Hero: Butch O'Neil
Heroine: Marissa
Pages:455
Category: Paranormal
Grade: Two grades here...The book grade~ B, The ending grade~ C

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. His heart belongs to a female vampire, Marissa, an aristocratic beauty who's way out of his league. And if he can't have her, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers.

But fate curses him with the very thing he wants. 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, he's found by a miracle, and the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back, though even her love may not be enough to save him.

*****SPOILERS ALERT***** It would be really hard for me to review this book and not have spoilers in it so I'm not even going to try to hold back. BEWARE.

First off how freaking excited was I to be the first one to reserve this book at my library? Then how much MORE excited was I when they got it early and I picked it up on thursday! Yeay me! Okay but now to the review....

By the time I read this book it's been what? Six months since Lover Awakened? So I wasn't really fresh on the whole Butch/Marissa thing. I was a little blurry. But that wasn't really a problem, yeah I wanted to remember why they were apart but it didn't hinder the story.

Right off we see Butch suffering from feeling the odd man out. He has a bond with V, and loves Marissa yet he's not a Brother and thinks Marissa has rejected him. None of the clothes he wears are his down to his boxers and the money he spends just as where he lives isn't his either.

When he comes across a civilian about to be attracted by lessers he steps in to help. Needless to say he's in bad shape when V finds him. He was worked over by the for-lesser and the Omega did a job on him.

When he wakes up he finds himself in Havers (Marissa's brother) clinic under quarantine.....with Marissa by his side. With his memory filled with black holes he can't remember what exactly happened to him but he knows Marissa should not be with him, risking her life.

Marissa didn't think twice about racing to Butch when she heard he was hurt. Nor did she even take a second to think of her safety as she burst into his room without the proper coverings on. When she is found with Butch her brother tells her that she may be contaminated and has to stay there till it is found to be safe for them both to leave.

During the time Marissa and Butch are locked together in this room there are a lot of misunderstandings cleared up and a lot more made.

That I can tell you this book was full of.

It's weird cause normally I'll want to throw a book against a wall for all the misunderstandings these two had. But all I had were my eye rolls and a little annoyances, but I still could not put the book down for two seconds.

I think Ward's saving grace is that she chops up her story's so well. She never says on one person or one scene for a long time. So yeah, I don't like reading about the lessers that much (it bores me) but I want to get to B&M that I fly through the short paragraph or two of lessers so fast.

Anyway. We find out that Butch has Vampire in him, surprise surprise. And he is some super powerful tool to be used by the brotherhood. But here are some of my issues. When he goes through his transition he gets bigger, like the other brothers. Now I already thought of Butch as kind of big, now he's so big that Ward wrote his boxers were all tight on him. Now I normally picture boxers kinda loose so for him to get this big I kept getting a picture of the Incredible Hulk with ripped clothes and all in my mind. I know! But I couldn't help it, and it was messing with the story for me. lol.

Then every time he would fight lessers with the brotherhood he didn't seem to fight as good and when he did his thing he was so tired, he seemed kinda weak. I think all around he seemed kinda weak. I don't particularly think someone that would take their life as strong I think that is weak, and he tried that. Early on in the book. But actually I shouldn't go there cause that situation was unique with what happened to him and how he was feeling at the time. So whatever.

The book of course was full of horrible slag but as usual it didn't bother me to the point of not wanting to read it. It was just silly as usual.

The whole V and Butch gay vibes? Definitely here! lol. I mean there were times when V was all kinds of up in Marissa and Butch's private affairs and he was more focused on Butch than Marissa. And I just have to quote this one part for you all, listen to this and tell me there isn't that I-wish-we-could-but-know-it's-not-to-be vibe:

Without thinking, Butch tilted his chin up, aware that he was offering himself, aware that he...oh, fuck. He stopped his thought , completely weirded out by the vibe that had sprung up from God only knew where.
In slow motion Vishous's dark head dropped down and there was a silken brush as his goatee moved against Butch's throat. With delicious precision, V's fangs pressed against the vein punched through skin. Their chests merged.
Butch closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of it all, the warmth of their bodies so close, the way V's hair felt soft on his jaw, the slide of a powerful male arm as it slipped around his waist. On their own accord, Butch's hands left the pegs and came to rest on V's hips, squeezing that hard flesh, bringing them together from head to foot. A tremor went thought one of them. Or maybe...shit, it was more like they both shuddered.
And then is was done. Over with. Never to happen again.
Neither of them looked at the other as V broke away ... and the parting was complete and irrevocable. A path that would not be walked. Ever.

There was also a part when V was saying to himself that he thought of Butch as his. It was almost like he knew he was in love with Butch and knew it was weird cause he never felt that for a male before and knew also that it wouldn't come of anything cause Butch loved Marissa to much so he was just going to deal with it and try to move on. I mean hell I'm all for best guy friends but these two? Definitely more.

But anyway, I really don't care about that much, just wanted to point out IT WAS THERE STILL! LOL.

We read about Butch's past and his dead sister, also his sister that is alive and his parents. Now in the end we do find out why Butch's father hated him, and how exactly he got Vampire in him. BUT there is no closure to the family issues. Does he really just not care at all? Does his sister really just not care??? Guess you have to read it to see what I mean.

And in ending my choppy all over the place review I'll say that I really didn't like the ending of the book. It came way to fast, like it was all rushed in the end, and it wasn't even of Marissa and Butch! Are you serious! Comon', that just really irked me. But whatever, it was still a good book that I didn't put down for a second and would tell everyone to go get.

Read the Series in Order:
Dark Lover
Lover Eternal
Lover Awakened
Lover Revealed

Dream Man by Kelley Vitollo

Hero: David
Heroine: Sadie
Category: Contemporary
Page Count: 10 pages
Grade: C

Sadie has the same dream every night. She dreams of a man with black hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and magical hands. When dream becomes reality and she comes face to face with her dream man, will he be everything she imagined, and more?

Okay I know it's been FOREVER since I've done Kelley's interview and honestly ... I have no idea how this review got pushed to the back. But never the less here it is.

As we know this is Kelley's first published piece of work. So I'm going to break this down into two parts. Writing style and the story itself.

Writing style? I really liked! There weren't many, if any errors in the writing. It wasn't choppy at all, I would not have thought it was a first time author by the writing style at all. Even the flow was good. Now when I say that it doesn't mean I liked the pace of the story in which things happened. BUT I did like the way her words flowed. How her story flowed without seeming jumpy at all. I also liked the descriptions she used. Well for the most part, lol, of course we always have an issue or two here at SF right? So I'll tell you at one point David said that he loved her flavor, or he'd never tire of her flavor? Something but the fact is he said flavor, yuck! lol. Not a choice word of mine.

Okay now the story? A little unbelievable...BUT I think that the story could have been great. I don't really understand why it was so short. It seemed like we got the middle of the story and the rushed version of it. I would have loved to see more of who Sadie was and shared some of her dreams before we were even introduced to David. Then the part that was the story we got should have been stretched a little longer, then I think we could have had quite a bit afterwards. It wasn't the writing style that was fast it was just what actually happened in the few short pages we got was extremely rushed. This story could have been stretched to at least 50 pages. Minimum. But 11? Why would you even do that?

I think Dream Man has great potential and I personally hope Kelley picks it up again at a later date and expands on it cause I'd be very interested in reading a whole lot more of it.

Very good writing though. And I do look forward to more by Kelley in the future. Hopefully something a lot longer. She's got talent.

The Marriage Bed by Laura Lee Guhrke

Summary: 1833, Lord John and Lady Viola Hammond remain the talk of the Ton as they continue to remain estranged for eight years with no heir, but he never cared because his solid best friend cousin Percy is next in line. That changes when John receives a letter from JohnÂ's widow Constance that he died along with their son. Grieving for his loss, John needs an heir because he will not allow the estate to be destroyed by his next in line. John visits Viola, informing her of the deaths and that he expects them to share a conjugal bed once he returns from the funeral. Viola says she will not sleep with him; John says he is within his legal right and she will or else he will take her to the House of Commons where even her ducal brother knows he will win. Following the funeral, John returns to London to get Viola. He admits that he wed her for her money, but liked her. She asks for more time and they begin seeing one another for he courts his wife who he is beginning to fall in love with while she always loved him.

Okay I read the first two books in this trilogy and loved them soo soo much. In those books you meet the Heroine from this book, Viola. You fall in love with the heart broken woman who at a very young age married a man she loved and who betrayed her and has been having continual affairs. You never meet John outright but hear about all the horrible things he does. So by time I started reading TMB I was ready to hate him. Well let me tell you LLG did aawesomee job at making you fall in love with a man that was so wrong in everything he did. The reason I gave this book a C was not because of the writing, which was top of the line, or the lack of interest in the story cause I was so into it. But because I personally could not imagine making any of the decisions the heroine did.

After John had had affairsamongg many women of the ton for 9 years he decides to come back to Viola because he finally needs an heir. He basically tells her the reason he went to all of those women was because she turned him out of her bed and was so unforgiving. Well she turned him out of her bed because she felt betrayed when she found out he had lied to her and was keeping a mistress while they were courting. Then instead ofapologizingg or begging for her understanding and explaining he gives her a month to 'get over it' and come back to him and when she doesn't he just leaves. Then starts the 9 years of affairs. During that time Viola is forced by her social standing to suffer through dinners, card games, balls and more with the women her husband is sleeping with.

Now LLG did a very good job of redeeming John...how heart broken he was when his sister died when he was just a child, how his parents never showed him any love, how his best friend and cousin died. But still can all theunhappinesss he suffered through be excuse enough for all he did? Not to say in the nine years they were married he didn't change but did thatcancele out all the horribly wrong things he did to his marriage? I just don't know.

One other thing that John did that really rubbed me the wrong way was when Viola, after taking a huge chance on loving himagainn, asked if he would promise to stay faithful he wouldn't promise. He said it depended on her! Well if he really loved her, as he supposedly did at the end, no matter what she did he would have stayed faithful. Right?

But like I said in the beginningg I did end up falling for John, and I loved Viola from the start. But honestly I don't know if I could have made the hard choices Viola did. I give hera lott of props as a great heroine, it would take a very strong woman to forgive like she did.

Grade: C

Read the Series in order:
Guilty Pleasures
His Every Kiss
The Marriage Bed