Books 31 & 32

Book 31 was the third Black Dagger Brotherhood Book by JR Ward, Lover Awakened. This is definitely my favorite of the series; the tale of the former blood slave Zsadist and the aristocratic Bella. This story really begins in the second book of the series when the character of Bella is introduced and is immediately smitten with Zsadist, though she rebuffs her because he thinks she is only attracted to him because he's so mean and twisted. Book 2 ends with Bella kidnapped by the evil lessers, though Zsadist vows to keep looking for her until they know what happened.

At the beginning of Lover Awakened, Zsadist rescues Bella from the lessers and the plot unfolds as she clings to him following her captivity, while both Zsadist and his twin Phury fall in love with her. One of the most important plot points of the book is Zsadist's sexual abuse at the hands of the woman who enslaved him. It causes alot of pain for he and Bella as Zsadist tries to shed his fear of intimacy and sex. I find it interesting that such a thing is included because of how taboo sexual abuse still is for people to talk about and I'm glad Ward is willing to tackle such a thing.

Book 32 was A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands, the first book in her Argeneau Vampire series. I found it to be pretty generic and hard to get into for the first half, but I bought the first four in the series, so here's hoping the others are better. I found the secondary characters more interesting than the leads, so hopefully the other books are about them.