Lover Revealed by J. R. Ward

 Title: Lover Revealed (The Black Dagger Brotherhood, 4)
Author: J. R. Ward
Genre: Erotica, Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Piatkus (3rd February 2011)
Blurb:

In the Shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly war raging between vampires and their slayers. And there exists a secret band of brothers like no other – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Now, an ally of the BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD will face the challenge of his life and the evil of the ages.

Butch O’Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard living ex-homicide cop, he’s the only human ever 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.

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, found by a miracle, the Brotherhood calls on the beautiful vampire Marissa to bring him back, though even her love may not be enough to save him . . .

Rating: *** (3 stars)
Review:

LOVER REVEALED by J. R. Ward is the fourth book in her brilliant Black Dagger Brotherhood series. This book tells the story of Butch, the only human to fit in with the Brotherhood and know their secret, and Marissa, the former shellan of the king of the vampire race.

Like the previous books of this series, the narrative of LOVER REVEALED is split. This time between Butch, Marissa and Mr X – who has apparently made a reappearance in the series. The focus of this book is pretty equally split between the war between vampires and the lesser, Butch and Marissa’s relationship, and the spill-out of the war into vampire society.

To begin with, this book is almost a comedy of misunderstandings between Marissa and Butch and to be honest I found this a bit wearisome at times. I really enjoyed the sections with vampire politics though, and I thought Ward did a good job suggesting Butch’s backstory. It was also nice to see Marissa in a world where she was more familiar, and I thought that for the first time this book showed how strong a person she is – and also how fragile.

The return of Mr X in this book was something I wasn’t expecting at all considering the events of LOVER AWAKENED. In fact, the Mr X in this book was a lot more three dimensional than he had been when he last made an appearance in the series. Ward again provided a good glimpse into the world of the lesser, and how very different it is from the world of the vampires.

This book is a good addition to the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and it was interesting to see events play out on the page. I am curious to see what the fifth book holds.