The book was "meh". The characters not well formed. Secondary characters were simply page fillers; no real purpose. I'm pretty upset about this book. Don't waste the money. Get it from the library (if you need to read it).

I got almost halfway done & had to stop because I was so bored with this. I loved the BDB books when they first came out, but this just isn't doing it for me.

Sip your drink every time you read wind breaker.

Heart pumping action and a fated love story, couldn’t put it down!

To be honest, I think I would actually give this book a 3.5. But I felt I had to counterbalance all the over-the-top ratings a bit. It was good. It wasn’t THAT good.

So, overall, another decent installment in the BDB world. And yes, technically, it’s a spinoff. But still. Same world, same time, same New York, etc. Just a different branch of vamps we didn’t know about previously. But I am sure it’ll all intersect. Need to inject some new dudes into your series because you have pretty much exhausted the current available population?? Invent a whole new secret corrupt underground prison with all sorts of ‘unjustly imprisoned’ innocent (and some not-so-innocent) peeps. Bingo! However it came about, I do like the premise, and the new hot males we now have to swoon over. Dear merciful heavens, we better get a book about Apex!!! If not, I’M OUT!.

As I am all about Rhage, his flashbacks were mildly interesting, but didn’t rivet me like most things Rhage tend to do. Kind of…meh. I can see now that it was probably more to start setting up Darius. So….there’s that. I haven’t gotten onboard the Darius-train yet. But I’m sure I’ll get there.

Now to my BIG PROBLEM: the female. Good grief. I listened to most of his on a long drive and I was so aggravated, I had to start writing all the things she was doing to irritate me while driving so I wouldn’t forget them (apologies to anyone driving from the South up through the Midwest in early September 2023. That was my truck and horse trailer taking their half of the interstate out of the middle occasionally.)

I digress. Anyway. I am seeing a trend in BDB females lately. And I DON’T LIKE THEM. And I don’t know if The Warden is doing this on purpose to fit in with the latest trends in movies, books, etc. But I really hate these “I don’t need any help. I can do it myself. I don’t need to be rescued by a big strong man.” females that run off with these stupid half-baked ridiculous schemes that they have put NO THOUGHT into the logistics of. DRIVES ME CRAZY! I mean, what were Nix’s qualifications to break into the super secret underground prison that NO ONE has ever broken out of, that we know of? She took a self defense course (to get in shape) and read The Art of War. WTF??? And all she needs to take with her are a couple of guns, some protein bars, and a toothbrush. WTdoubleF??? Then when she stumbles along (getting extremely luck along the way because of her plot-armor) the freaking catacombs down below, and manages (lucky again) to run into, among all the super bad dregs of society that have been sent into the pits of hell, the one decent guy that’s not going to rape and kill her on the spot, she continually refuses his help. Nope, she’ll find her way among all these dangerous killers in the maze that is the underground prison all on her own. OF COURSE SHE WILL. Ugh! And that is just the beginning of her ‘insisting’. She INSISTS a lot. Insists on going on her own, insists on seeing Jack one more time when she’s about to finally escape, insists on going back with Jack to find..people, insists her sister ‘didn’t mean it’ when she’s being terrible, insists on discussing things when her grandpa finds her out in a field AS THE SUN IS COMING UP (ummmm….vampire??). And all her INSISTING keeps leading to more dangerous situations, or puts other people in danger.

I get it. She is a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER. Insert vomit emoji here. I am so sick of that. I mean, I am not surprised this is leaking into our super alpha male dominated BDB world, since we are currently remaking all our fairy tales to NOT have the handsome prince rescue the damsel. The damsel rescues herself. While giving birth (that she conceived through a sperm bank) on the first all-female mission to Mars. I’m sorry, did we not already have some great strong female characters in BDB. Yes, the obvious: Xhex, Payne. But what about Mary and Bella? Wonderful, amazing characters, with depth and emotion. Who can ask their males for help, and who ultimately wind up rescuing them in the end. Maybe not in a PHYSICAL way (well, uh, maybe Bella helped Z a bit physically….). But these guys are big strong fighters. Let them lead in their fields of expertise. We can still let men be men, and our female characters can still be strong characters without constantly doing rash stupid things outside their knowledge base, insisting they don’t need help. I mean, in the end ********spoilers here***********when she finds Jack almost dead, she insists on ‘carrying’ him out to the waiting vehicle herself because he’s ‘her male, and she was going to be the one to help him’ when she has Z, Phury, Vishious, Rhage all trying to help her. Would it really have mattered of one of the big strong dudes carried him for her? Rhage tried (ummmm, spoiler, half-brother). She and Jack had already had their touching ‘I love you’ moment there on the floor. Nope, let’s do more physical harm to the almost dead male by having the female help him out to the car. Sigh.

And oh, by the way, the younger sister, Posey, suddenly grew up and matured in the three days Nix was gone. She now no longer thinks the world is full of unicorns and rainbows. It was magical. So now Grandpa can die knowing that his girls are ‘ready to take on the world alone’. Really???

Anyway, rant over. I still rather enjoyed the book. I did have to step away from it for a few days after I had barely started it. Then plowed through it while on the long drive mentioned above. I have a couple more BDB books to catch up on until I’m current. And I hope I don’t see this trend continuing. Stay tuned.

2021 A-Z Reading Challenge: book that starts with J

2021 A-Z Reading Challenge: book that starts with J

Hot as hell, of course. High tension, high heat, huge HEA payoff like all of the Black Dagger Brotherhood books, but a different vibe from past stories I can’t quite put my finger on. Still a delicious, brooding, sexy read that did not disappoint.

It was a little slow to start but once it picked up I was hooked!