Blood Kiss: Black Dagger Legacy

I just can't quit J. R. Ward. No matter how a book may leave me sometimes wishing I could, I just can't. I always hope for better in the next one. Better character connections, better display of emotions, or better story advancement. Something like that. With Blood Kiss, I am actually looking forward to reading more about the new recruits. Now, I'm not knocked out of the park like I was with Consumed by Ward. But I am interested in continuing. For example, with the main Black Dagger Brotherhood series, I am stuck on The King, and can't finish it. I don't even remember the two books prior to it really either. I have just lost interest in the events of the story, but not the characters. So it's nice reading new "events" with the who recruitment process and still seeing some OG BDB.I was stuck between a 3 and a 4-star rating for this. I think it has to do with my unpopular opinion, to be honest. Craeg is a good male character for this story. I feel like at the end of the book his character could really have been a little more conflicted. I feel like there could have been a little more emotional build-up to the HAE end there. It wasn't bad. If it was supposed to snap into HAE like it did because of the saving the day moment, then I feel like not the emotions then more internal talking about how it snapped into place. Paradise is the Marissa I wanted. Although, we don't want a giant world full of similar type casts for EVERY book in a huge series right. So I respect Marissa for who is she as a person and how she fits into the world. Paradise is just more interesting to me. She is a young woman in the Glymera world who is supposed to be this pretty trophy with a good pedigree. But she wants to push herself to more. It turns out she is blindly capable of the recruit program. She makes it in and is the top of the class and it barely seems like it registers to her. Until later, there is an internal monologue that she intends to be true to the program. I wish there was a little more to read from Paradise and Craeg for sure.Unpopular Opinion: I have never been a fan of Marissa and Butch. I was just never super into them. I feel like this book made me tolerate them more. And I also appreciate that it was like a character redo. Like Paradise is the new Marissa. Same for Craeg. Half of this book is about Butch and Marissa. So it took to be from near the end of November to read this book, till about the end of January. That is so many months, but again, I just can't quit Ward. I just have never been a fan of them. If it was a book just about them I would have rated it lower. They go through some mundane emotional struggles that are kinda of redeeming to read. A developed relationship with some problems. But I am just not a fan of them. Sorry.Overall, I feel like this is a decent start for a spin-off from the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. I liked the new characters introduced. I liked the conflict that does happen within the story, and that it isn't just more Lessening Society.

I am totally into this series and was excited to read more about Paradise. Not as maga drama with her and Craeg but enough to keep me interested. There was plenty of that with the other plot lines, especially with Butch and Marissa. I loved how fierce and determined Paradise is. Nothing captures my interest like a strong female character. I also liked how Ward resolved this story line and hope we get a revisit sometime down the line since these characters are so young.

Blood Kiss is the first book in J. R. Ward's new Black Dagger Legacy series which is a spin-off of her Black Dagger Brotherhood series. To be honest, it didn't feel any different than a BDB story, except that instead of advancing the overall series story arc, it focuses more fully on one new couple plus one of our original Brotherhood couples. I know that prior to it's release, Ms. Ward said this is what she hoped to accomplish with this new series, and I think she's done so beautifully. Blood Kiss is reminiscent of the early BDB books in that the romance is more front and center, rather than part of a much larger story. I know some fans have gotten frustrated with the broader story arcs in the BDB series that sometimes feel more like urban fantasy than romance. I'm not one of them, but for those who are, I don't think you'll be disappointed with this book. There's plenty of romance and the steamy sex scenes for which the Warden is known, along with a little mystery on the side. It has more the feel of a New Adult romance, because the main characters are on the younger side, only a few years past their transitions. I have a feeling this was the author's and/or her publisher's way of tapping into this hot new market, and IMHO that's great. I loved this first book in the BDL series and can't wait to read more.Paradise is a daughter of the glymera. Her father is First Advisor to the King, and up until this book opens, she'd been working as the receptionist at the audience house. She knows what's expected of a young female in her position, but she doesn't really want any of that. When she heard that the Brotherhood were reopening their training center and that they were accepting females, she decided to apply. It's not so much that she wants to go fight in the war with the lessers, but she does want to know how to protect herself and those she loves. Paradise is a very intelligent young female, who is also much stronger than anyone, including even she herself, realized. The Brotherhood puts her and the rest of the recruits through an extremely intense initiation on their first night at the training center that was meant to weed out those who couldn't survive the program. Through it all she was a trooper, who really impressed me. What I liked the best about her is that she's a kind, caring female. She wouldn't leave her best friend, Peyton, behind even though she was mad at him right before the initiation started, and she stood up for Craeg too. In general, she can't seem to resist helping people, which I loved. At the same time, Paradise is rather lost, not knowing who she really is. Entering the Brotherhood's training program completely shakes up her quiet life as a glymera "princess," and she quickly finds herself being pushed to do things she never thought she would or could. This leaves a lot of distance between her and her father, because she doesn't want to worry him by telling him the full extent of what her training entails. That chasm only gets wider when she makes the decision to fully be with Craeg, because she knows that as a commoner, he isn't someone who her father and most definitely the glymera would approve.I really liked how, in The King, the author revealed that there's a hierarchical structure within the vampire world, just like there is in the human world. Aside from the doggen, there are also ordinary vampires who aren't part of the Brotherhood or the aristocracy. They're just every-day laborers like most people are. Craeg is the first of these commoners at whom we get an up close look. He's the son of a floor-layer, but he lost his entire family, father, mother, and sister, in the raids. Since then he's basically turned into a penniless loner, barely surviving, until the Brotherhood reopened their training center. He couldn't even afford Internet service, so he went the audience house to get an application and that's how he and Paradise ended up meeting for the first time. Craeg is strong and determined to be the best recruit in the program to the point that it almost seems like he's trying to prove something. At first, I thought he was doing it because he had few other options and it was his best shot at a decent life, which is probably true, but then we discover later that he's doing it to ahvenge his family, which made a lot of sense.I love an intelligent hero, and I have to give Craeg a lot of credit for being smart. First of all, he could have gone off half-cocked and bent on revenge after things started to settle down from the raids, but instead he did the right thing by getting training first. Secondly, I thought he was incredibly intelligent and observant to figure out what the Brothers were doing during the initiation and how to get around all of the obstacles they put in the trainees' way. The way Craeg was analyzing everything so quickly reminded me of Jason Bourne, who I have a major crush on.:-) The thing I really loved, though, is how he keeps looking out for Paradise, even though he keeps trying to tell himself he's not, yet at the same time, he respects her as an equal in the training program. I absolutely adore a hero who can be protective, but also fully respect a woman's abilities. Craeg doesn't really want or need the distraction of a female to take his focus away from the single-mindedness of his training and his mission, but I love how Paradise keeps getting under his skin anyway. It's so cute how Craeg adamantly tells Peyton there's nothing going on between him and Paradise, while Peyton is saying, uh-huh, bonding scent, fangs, sure dude, you keep telling yourself that. It cracked me up, because this type of behavior is so like one of the Brothers.Paradise and Craeg's relationship is equal parts sweet and sexy. Paradise doesn't tell any of the trainees who don't already know that she's a member of the glymera, because she doesn't want to be treated any differently. This leads to some trouble in paradise when Craeg learns the truth. Despite not knowing Paradise's origins for most of the story, Craeg can sense that she's a female of worth and doesn't think he's good enough for her, yet he can't seem to stay away either. He fights his feelings for her for quite a while and exercises some admirable self-control when it comes to not fully taking her virginity. She practically has to seduce him into it after carefully considering the consequences to her own status. In the meantime, they share some extremely sexy moments anyway, creatively skirting around the issue.Our focus Brotherhood couple in this book is Butch and Marissa, whom we've seen on occasion, but not too much of them together since their own book. I liked getting a peek at Marissa's work at Safe Place. She and Butch have a rocky path to navigate, as they feel somewhat distant from one another. When a beaten and bloodied female shows up at Safe Place and later dies, Marissa is reluctant to tell Butch about it because of what happened to his sister. For Butch's part, he's placed Marissa up on a pedestal for far too long and keeps certain things from her, not wanting to sully her with the darker, seedier side of his life, which frustrates her. They also have to face the revelation that he had sex with Xhex before they were mated. I loved seeing them work through these issues and come closer together in the end, as they investigate the female's murder as a team. Butch was very much in his element as a former homicide detective, and I can't help feeling that this may lead to some additional changes in the vampire societal structure. This couple also got some pretty steamy scenes of their own.Overall, Blood Kiss was a great start to this new series and an awesome addition to the BDB series. I personally wouldn't recommend reading the Black Dagger Legacy without reading the BDB first, because you won't have a good understanding of the core Brotherhood characters otherwise. Also Paradise, Craeg, and Peyton were first introduced in the most recent BDB book, The Shadows, where you'll get a greater understanding of who she is and where she comes from. It kind of remains to be seen whether the BDB can be read independently of the BDL. I have a feeling that at least to some degree, the characters and story lines are going to intertwine. As for future stories in the BDL, there are several new trainee characters to choose from, all of whom are compelling in their own way. I haven't seen any news on who the next main couple will be, but if I had to lay odds, I'd guess it's going to be Peyton and Novo. I'm equally interested, though, in seeing more of Axe and Boone too. I'm also eager to follow the recruits through their training, and especially excited to get more of the core Brotherhood couples' continuing stories.I'll finish off this review by mentioning my favorite scene from Blood Kiss, which is the Brothers' reaction to finding out that the ladies are watching Magic Mike XXL. I don't want to ruin anything by giving any more details, so let's just say that it's classic Brotherhood behavior that had me in stitches and grinning from ear to ear. If you want to know more, you'll have to read the book yourself, and if you're a fan of the Brotherhood, I think you'll love it.:-D

Once again, Ward has a way of making me invest in characters I think I won't care all that much for. I wasn't thrilled to be reading about some aristocrat named Paradise, but, like Marissa, I came to like her. And of course I got a little dose of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. There was much less than I'd hoped - probably because this is a side story and nothing too dramatic can happen to the characters that mostly belong to the original series. I was glad that half of this story revolved around butch and Marissa. That was something else Ward always did well with - alternating between two or three story lines in each book, so that there's always something interesting going on with no real lags. I'm pretty excited to get on to the other new book, the newest Black Dagger Brotherhood, but I think this new smaller series of a newer generation might take off as well. I must do a reread of the whole series soon.

First in the Black Dagger Legacy series, a spin-off from the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Paradise, blooded daughter of the king’s First Advisor, has just joined the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s training center program. It's an incredibly difficult and physically challenging induction, less than one in ten recruits make it through. And that is without the added complication of Paradise falling for fellow recruit and impoverished civilian, Craeg. Meanwhile, the Brother in charge, Butch O’Neal (a.k.a. the Dhestroyer) is having serious problems in his own life. Enjoyed.

So, apparently Ward is trying to get back to the basics with this series. The training program, which hasn't been operational in years (even though the war is heating up and they definitely need more troops in the field against the Lessers), is back in business. A slew of new characters are introduced, although a few made appearances in the main BDB series (especially Paradise, Abalone's daughter). This is Paradise and Craeg's book. Paradise was born into an aristocratic family, but she wants more from life than what society thinks is her place. With her father's permission, she enters the training program and does well, surprising even herself. Then there is Craeg, whom we have also met before briefly, who is a commoner. His father was killed during the raids because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the aristocratic family he was working for refusing him entry into their safe room. Now Craeg has a chip on his shoulder and enters the training program because he wants to seek vengeance for his father. Then there is Butch and Marissa, who are having some marital difficulties. Butch is a little too invested in the "Madonna or whore" complex, thanks to his strict upbringing. And Marissa finds a woman nearly beaten to death at Safe Place, which triggers all sorts of things. Two thirds of the way into the book, I almost gave up on it, but I am glad that I stuck things out to the end. The character who basically threatens a queer character (unbeknownst to her) with "corrective rape" is actually the person responsible for killing women, including the one who managed to make it to Safe Place, so I guess I can understand his general asshole remarks. That doesn't mean that I liked reading about it, though. And I still found Craeg's need to tell Paradise how to explore her own body as creepy as fuck. Sorry, not riding the Paradise Craeg train. I did like how Marissa stood up to Butch and called him out on his ridiculous behavior, so that was a plus. I was never a big fan of theirs, but I liked Marissa more after this book.I do like this series adding some much-needed new blood to the universe. And I would love love love to read a book that features Z and Bella as the secondary story like Marissa and Butch were featured here. ;)

Blood Kiss by J.R. WardBlack Dagger Legacy #1Audio Narrated by Jim FrangioneParadise, daughter of the King's First Advisor, Abalone, has begun training with the Brothers as they begin a new program for civilians, which includes both commoners and members of the aristocracy (glymera) in the fight against the Lesser Society, the nemesis of the vampire species.One of her classmates, Creag, a commoner who lost his father to the Lessers, is out for revenge against certain members of the aristocracy as they were partially to blame for his father's death. Paradise, being part of the glymera herself but who is keeping that information hidden during training so she won't be treated differently, tries to convince him to find another way to seek justice against those who wronged him.Their training starts off exciting and dangerous, reminiscent of Navy SEALs training, as the Brothers weed out contenders, bringing their numbers down from 60 to 7. Creag and Paradise are drawn to each other and Creag's protective instincts kick in immediately, but to his credit, he shows her respect by not overstepping any boundaries and allows her to prove her own strength, intelligence, and courage. It's refreshing to see a pretty, blonde, delicate woman put into the role of hero.One of their trainers, the Brother, Butch, is also a focus in this book as we see him and his shellan, Marissa, work through some marital/communication issues which are stirred up after an injured woman seeks refuge at Marissa's "Safe Place" for battered women.This is a great addition to the BDB world.