Books 20 - 23

I'm re-reading JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series in preparation for the newest in the series, Love Avenged, to come out at the end of April, so Book 20 was the first BDB book, Dark Lover. This is one of my favorites in the series, and I enjoyed re-reading it, although I've read it enough times to skim over the boring parts with the bad guys. I'm hoping Ward cuts out some of the time she spends in each book focusing on the bad guys. I kind of like to be surprised by what the baddies are planning, and Ward lets the reader in on their plans a little too much to suit me.

Books 21 - 23 were the 3 stories in LJ Smith's Night World 2 anthology: Dark Angel, The Chosen, and Soulmate. Dark Angel was fairly boring, and I never really felt connected to the heroine, Gillian, or her soulmate David. I wish the back of the book hadn't given away that Gillian's so-called "guardian angel" wasn't what he seemed and let the reader figure that out on their own.

The Chosen was better, since I was excited to see human-hating Quinn again after his appearance in a couple earlier Night World books. He's another one of Smith's ambiguous heroes, who's done bad things but in the end decides on a new path of good. Smith does this with lots of her guys (Damon, Ash, etc), and it might get old after a while, but I still liked Quinn a lot.

My fave in this anthology was Soulmate, the story of the oldest "made" vampire and his soulmate Hannah. I believe this story begins the setup for the apocolypse that seemed to be going on in the short story on Smith's website that carries on the plot of Ash Redfern and his mate, Mary-Lynette from Night World 1. I'm guessing all hell breaks loose in Night World 3! Nobody writes crazyness like LJ Smith.