Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward

Title: Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood #3) 
Author: J.R. Ward  
Source: Purchased; eBook 464 pages
Challenges: Vampires

In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there's a deadly turf war going on between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other-six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Even within the vampire brotherhood, Zsadist is feared. Still bearing the scars from a tortured past, he is renowned for his unquenchable fury. Anger is his only companion, and terror is his only passion-until he rescues a beautiful female from the evil Lessening Society. 

My Rating: 5 stars ★★★★★
My Thoughts: I LOVED this book!!! It's funny - I knew I was going to love this - before I even read it! I couldn't even wait to go to the bookstore and buy it; I downloaded it for my NOOK about twenty minutes after finishing Lover Eternal... I also finished the book less than 24hrs after that. What a page-turner!!

Zsadist is by far my favorite Brother of them all; I think that's because he's such a complex, dynamic character. It was heart-warming (and also heart-wrenching) to watch him struggle and transform from the black-eyed, soulless, terrifying warrior into a protective, kind, loving man. I also loved that this novel was much less myopic than Dark Lover was - it has many of sub-plots and deep characterization of all the main characters, as opposed to solely focusing on the protagonist.

The one thing I didn't like that much about this novel was some of the prose when Zsadist has his flashbacks into the past. It tended to get a tad bit too cheesy-typical-romance-novel-y.

Definitely my favorite book in the series so far! <3 I would surely recommend it to fans of adult PR / vampire books.

Warnings: adult (not YA); mature content: sex & violence

Cover Musings: I don't think any of the BDB covers are ah-mazing, but I like the monochromatic color scheme on each cover and the fact that they all go together well as a series

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