Review: Lover Unleashed by J.R. Ward

From the Back Cover:

Payne, twin sister of Vishous, is cut from the same dark, warrior cloth as her brother: A fighter by nature, and a maverick when it comes to the traditional role of Chosen females, there is no place for her on the Far Side… and no role for her on the front lines of the war, either.

When she suffers a paralyzing injury, human surgeon Dr. Manuel Manello is called in to treat her as only he can- and he soon gets sucked into her dangerous, secret world. Although he never before believed in things that go bump in the night- like vampires- he finds himself more than willing to be seduced by the powerful female who marks both his body and his soul.

As the two find so much more than an erotic connection, the human and vampire worlds collide … just as a centuries old score catches up with Payne and puts both her love and her life in deadly jeopardy.

My Thoughts:

This is supposed to be Payne and Manny's story, and those two do play major roles, but really, this is the Vishous show. Which is abso fine by me, cuz V is my boy! And of course, wherever V is, theregoeth Jane and Butch. I was hooked right away, and I enjoyed the book very much, but I'm not going to go into detail and give anything away about the plot. Instead I'm going to whine a little bit about the things that kept me from giving this book five stars and that have me worried about the upcoming end of the series.

One of the things that makes this series so great is the stellar job Ward's done of building a complex world with some far-ranging storylines that get bigger and bigger with each book, but she's always managed to make everything connect and enhance the underlying story of the brotherhood. I think she slips in that respect in this one. Since the next book is the last one, I expected to see things tightening up, things clicking into place in preparation for a final showdown with the Lessening Society. Let's work on getting our brothers' many problems somewhat resolved so we can say a meaningful good-bye to the series and be satisfied. Instead I feel like I don't know where she's going.

With an on-going series like this, you're going to have a few characters who get rotated to the backburner, but I was really surprised to find characters like Z, Tohr, and John Matthew reduced to virtually non-existant roles in favor of new characters and disjointed storylines. It felt disrespectful to them and actually pissed me off a bit.

I know I'm complaining, but it's because I love this series so much, and the next book is the last, and I feel like there are still so many things that I want to see happen  before this series ends, (hello, Qhuinn and Blay!), and with all the new characters and story arcs she added to this one, I don't see how that's going to happen. Of course, I really hope I'll be eating my words this time next year, in fact, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for it!

My Rating:  4 Stars out of 5