Review: Blood Kiss by J.R. Ward

Title: Blood Kiss

Author: J.R. Ward

Series: Black Dagger Legacy #1

5 stars – I loved it!

Paradise, blooded daughter of the king’s First Advisor, is tired of being forced into the gymera mold. She wants to be her own person and protect herself. She joins the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s training program to find herself. What she doesn’t expect is for it to be so difficult and painful. It also doesn’t help that she is falling for her classmate Craeg, who is a civilian.

I really enjoyed this one! Paradise was strong, courageous, and determined to live her life the way she wanted. She refuses to be another pretty glymera noble who does nothing. Not only is she courageous, she is very kind and compassionate about others. She sees everyone as the same, no matter their class and wants to help everyone. Paradise really reminded me of Melissa, who is also featured in this book, and how she broke away from the glymera for Butch and opened Safe Place.

“If working around the King had taught her anything, it was that no matter what class you were in, tragedy didn’t discriminate, justice could always be served, and nobody got out of this life alive.”

Craeg was a civilian who lost his family during the lesser attacks. He only has the training program left. Craeg was a protective alpha male who I instantly loved. He was gruff, standoffish, and at the same time kind to Paradise. He was everything I love in a grumpy alpha male. I loved everything about these two and I really can’t wait to see them in future books.

This book also features Butch and Melissa, who are having some marrital problems. They both have painful pasts that they have just pushed aside for years without dealing with them. That only works for so long though and in this one they finally have to deal with some of the issues. Butch has to stop seeing Melissa as the perfect good girl woman on a pedistal and Melissa needs to work through the trauma of what Haver’s and the glymera did to her. These two have a hard time but they come out stronger for it, which I am so happy about because Butch is one of my favorites.

“Here’s what I know to be true. We can bury the past all we like. We can use a hundred thousand distractions, some of which are healthy, some of which are not, to keep it under the ground—but when something isn’t processed, it will absolutely, positively come back and bite us on the ass.”

Also, I finally realized who Lassiter reminds me of!!! It’s just taken almost the whole series to figure it out. Lassiter reminds of the Dean from Community!

Overall, I loved this book and look forward to more from this side series. I can’t get enough of this world and meeting characters who are not the brothers is always fascinating.

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Previous books in the Black Dagger World: