No blog from me this week.
You’re not surprised, are you? It’s been a rough few weeks for me and my blog. First, I put myself on sabbatical so I could come up with some fresh ideas said blog. Then I started to come back and blog, but couldn’t because I had to take time out from my busy schedule to read Sandra Brown’s RICOCHET. This week, I had to hustle and read J.R. Ward’s second novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, LOVER ETERNAL, before the third novel, LOVER AWAKENED, comes out this Tuesday.
Time well spent, if you ask me. Ward’s vampire warriors, with names like Wrath and Rhage, are alpha through and through, and each is damaged in a deliciously dark way. Wrath for instance, the hero in DARK LOVER, is blind and has a fairly bad attitude, while Rhage from LOVER ETERNAL, has stunning good looks—hence his nickname “Hollywood”—and gives new meaning to the phrase “the beast within.”
In LOVER ETERNAL, Rhage meets his match in Mary, a human female with a life-threatening issue to deal with. Mary can’t open up to Rhage, and Rhage fears she could never love him if she knew the WHOLE story, so this, along with the human/vampire thing, makes for a conflict-filled roller coaster ride of a book. Just to make the book even more fun, Ward adds in the beginnings of a romance between Zsadist, the seriously twisted warrior brother, and Bella, a beautiful vampire who somehow sees the beauty behind Zsadist’s beast.
Z’s and Bella’s story, as you no doubt know, will hit the stands on September 5. I’ve been frantically trying to get a copy of the book BEFORE Tuesday, but no go. My sister, meanwhile, pre-ordered her copy, has it in her hot little hands already, and has been only too happy to gloat about it. I’ll deal with her later.
In the meantime, why don’t I just go ahead and tell the truth? We’re all friends here. I’m not gonna blog next week, either. I’ll have my nose deep in LOVER AWAKENED, and I’ll be waaaaaay too busy with that to think up anything to say about the writing life. But, if you’re interested, stop by anyway and I’ll be happy to tell you what I think of J.R. Ward’s latest novel. I’m sure it’ll be brilliant, just like the others.