The King by J.R. Ward*Contains Spoilers*
The Nitty Gritty: The First Family of the Brotherhood is back with a vengeance with a side of baby fever. Wrath and Beth are trying to find time to just be Wrath and Beth and not the Bling King and the Half Blood Queen, but the Band of Bastards and the Glymera are trying their best to ruin the royals good time.
Assail is on a mission. His female has been kidnapped and he is going to find her. No matter who he has to ghost in the process.
Trez is running from an arranged marriage and trying his best to screw his way out of it. the s'Hibe is working hard to drag the shadow back into the Territory and his destiny, but the Chosen Selena has wormed her way into his head and his heart.
Opening Line: "Long live the King"
The Good: The sex was adequate in this book, but its starting to become a little interchangeable.
The Bad: There is and was no reason for this book to be 573 pages. Just no reason. None at all. In her earlier books that were 250 pages she packed more in between those pages than she managed to slap in 573 pages of this book.
I am just at the point where I don't gave a rat's furry behind about anyone or any vampire that's not in the Brotherhood. I mean these other side stories took up half the dang on book. I mean yeah Sola is the bad girl or whatever but frankly I don't care about her. I mean we hardly get to see the Brothers that we fell in love with. V gets a few talking point and a vision. Rhage gets a two liner in there book. Butch gets a one liner and oh we finally get a see a bit more of John Matthew.
Its just all the side line plot stories and characters are over shadowing the main characters. Which I think Ward is wasting a good opportunity for spin off series featuring the whole cast of characters that we are getting in the books about the Brotherhood. I mean she has created an awesome little community around the Brotherhood that she could make an entire series about. But give me the Brotherhood. I mean this is the first book that we've seen Rhage actually speak since Lover Unleashed.
I'm just sick of the main characters only getting 30% of the book.
So Beth goes to bed one night and wakes up the next morning and wham she had a baby bump and she's four months pregnant....um....riiiiiiiiiight. But oh that's explained away because she is a half-human vampire. So yeah there's the answer.
No I don't think so.
The shower scene with Sola and Assail.....yeah I need to take a clorax bath after reading that. I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but a guy that comes on your face without at least asking doesn't respect you and that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I thought the scene was beyond the pail for me.
I've got my panties in a wad over the Shadows. Not with them personally other than them hijacking the storyline, but I've got a problem with them as "not" black characters.
Yeah, yeah I read Ward's flimsy excuse for why they are black but not really black because they aren't humans and Shadows don't prescribe to the human connotation with race, blah, blah, blah.
Sing that song for someone else sweetheart. I'm not buying. You have caucasian characters in your story and not once did you ever make a point of them separating their species from their race. But the one time you veer of the white default party line and give us characters of color you slip their wings. Then we get that "Shadows think anything white is ill" BS but then Trez screws anything white and bonds with Selene who happens to be white.
But it doesn't stop there. Everything that she uses to describe Trex and iAm are African American characteristic markers. Thick full lips, dark skin, close shaved faded hair. So everything about them screams black but they aren't black. Oh and I love the little race card pulling you threw in there. We get a whole internal monologue from Trez about how he isn't black and that if humans want to call him black and treat him accordingly they are going to get dealt with *cue eye-roll*
So come on Ward if you are going to dip your toe in the ethnic pool you might as well jump in.
You are giving your white characters the chance and the space to be white. Even the gay ones get to be gay in all their colorful glory, give your characters of color the same space.
Final Thoughts: Well I hate to say it but I think its truly hard for an author to maintain a book series past 7 or 8 books. This is the 3rd series that I'm having to drop because I can't take it anymore. The author just gets lazy and starts slapping together anything to give us. Yes I know how much work goes into writing any book. I'm an aspiring author myself. So I get it, but I also know how much writers fall in love with their characters and Ward is doing the brothers a disservice. I'm going to give her one more book because I stuck it out with Harris and True Blood, but that's it. I expect better from her because she has given it to me in the past.
