Review ~ Blood Kiss (Black Dagger Legacy #1) by JR Ward

Book Description:

Paradise, blooded daughter of the king's First Advisor, is ready to break free from the restrictive life of an aristocratic female. Her strategy? Join the Black Dagger Brotherhood's training center program and learn to fight for herself, think for herself... be herself. It's a good plan, until everything goes wrong. The schooling is unfathomably difficult, the other recruits feel more like enemies than allies, and it's very clear that the Brother in charge, Butch O'Neal, a.k.a. the Dhestroyer, is having serious problems in his own life.

And that's before she falls in love with a fellow classmate. Craeg, a common civilian, is nothing her father would ever want for her, but everything she could ask for in a male. As an act of violence threatens to tear apart the entire program, and the erotic pull between them grows irresistible, Paradise is tested in ways she never anticipated--and left wondering whether she's strong enough to claim her own power...on the field, and off.

Buy Links:

Now available in Paperback in the UK ~ published by Piaktus

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/21rkQIh

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1StR8MR

Amazon UK Paperback: http://amzn.to/1sVNMLl

Amazon US Paperback: http://amzn.to/1Pu6u7c

Our Review:

Reviewed by Shirley ~ 5 stars

Whenever I pick up a book written by J R Ward, especially when it involves the Brotherhood warriors I know I am in for a treat and this book is no different and does not disappoint.

This fabulous book incorporating two stories side by side within it, is very engrossing. It has erotic and sensual loving between two separate couples. One couple being Marissa and Butch who are in an established mating and the other being Paradise and Craeg, who are just setting out on a different path in their lives and meeting up and finding themselves reaching out tentatively in their budding love for each other.

The mated pair Marissa and Butch we have read about in previous books and it shows even in the happiest of bondings certain things can bring problems within it. With Paradise and Craeg, they have to reach over a divide that the different classes within their social structure has dictated for all over the centuries but in some cases love can conquer all.

You also have the Brotherhood Warriors doing what they do best keeping things lively and all these things together makes for a real page turner.

With Marissa and Butch it starts with an unknown female turning up battered and bleeding on the Safe House lawn where Marissa works. This woman touches Marissa so deeply that she has withdrawn herself from Butch which upsets him. He loves his shellan with every fibre of his being and the distance he feels between them is killing him. It wasn’t much better for Marissa, she hated what was happening between her and Butch but it is something she has to do and as you read this book you feel for this amazing couple and how their love that runs so deep helps get them through this tragedy.

The other story running throughout this book is about a privileged woman of the glymera, her name is Paradise and she is known to all of the Brotherhood Warriors. Paradise is the daughter of the Kings First Advisor and she wants to buck against her background and not be the little woman having to stay indoors and bring up children. Paradise wants to go out in the world and help with the upcoming war that is brewing and so she persuades her father to let herself sign up for the new Program that the Brotherhood has set up putting vampires through a gruelling test to make more units to help the Brotherhood win the war. It is while Paradise is going through the training that she meets Craeg who turns her world upside down.

Craeg is a male who has come from a poor background. He is the son of a worker to the glymera and has signed up with the Program with a private mission of his own and is determined to come out on the other side of the gruelling test that the Program entails. He is determined that nothing will stand in his way of achieving that until he meets a certain female in the form of Paradise who seems to be putting a spanner in the works.

It makes for absorbing reading how these two go through the test they have to overcome and also come to terms with what is growing between them, an attraction so powerful and erotic it hits them both intensely and when they meet with no one around it flares up making it harder for Craeg to resist.

"If I kiss you," he growled, "there's no going back. I might not fuck you right here, right now, but I'll have you on your back the instant I get the goddamn chance."

After thinking about everything that was involved, her father, the glymera and her decision to go into the Program it was with some relief that she came to her decision.

"So kiss me," she said.

This story has love, steamy sex and danger all wrapped up in one sensational book. It is one everyone will enjoy and will want to read. I can't wait to see how the Program develops, hopefully in future books. I loved it Ms Ward, great start to what will hopefully be a great new series.