A Love Worth Changing For

“I liked you, cop. From the moment I met you. 
No… not the first moment. I wanted to kill you when I first met you. 
But then I liked you. 
A lot.”

--J.R. Ward, Lover Revealed

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Onyx, 45 pages

Publication Date: March 6th, 2007

Source: Bought
Goodreads
Previous Books in Series:Dark Lover & Lover Eternal & Lover Awakened

Goodreads Description

Butch O'Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard-living ex-homicide cop, he's the only human ever to be allowed in the inner circle of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And he wants to go even deeper into the vampire world-to engage in the turf war with the lessers. His heart belongs to a female vampire, Marissa, an aristocratic beauty who's way out of his league. And if he can't have her, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers.

But fate curses him with the very thing he wants. When Butch sacrifices himself to save a civilian vampire from the slayers, he falls prey to the darkest force in the war. Left for dead, he's found by a miracle, and the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back, though even her love may not be enough to save him.

My Thoughts

Ok, so after Z and Bella’s story it is completely understandable to me that I was nervous to continue the entire series of books…all 9 more of them. While Butch’s story was not as compelling as Z’s (who’s is?!) I did really love reading about him. I really adored Butch in Dark Lover and found myself liking him a lot more than I thought I was going to. I thought he was going to be a very periphery characters that acts as an obstacle to the main duo but he totally was not like that at all. Throughout the previous books we see Butch really become a part of the Brotherhood. While his lack of vampire status hinders his use in the fighting, he does bring fantastic insight into the crime scene and investigation aspect of the Brothers.

In Lover Revealed, Butch is the main event and we see his intricacies so much more. I LOVED reading about him. Before starting it I didn’t know if his character and story would keep me interested for over 400 pages but it totally did. I really liked how we get more about his past and how dark it is. He really had a rough upbringing and was not such a good little cop growing up. I felt to much for Butch that he wanted to be more a part of the Brotherhood but his human genes prevented it. Although even with that, his bromance with the all the brothers (especially V) was so damn adorable! I was dying. I LOVE a good bromance story. Men and their friendships are so cute. Especially when these men are huge, muscular, ass-kicking vampires. They love their friends and I love them for it. 

Butch’s need to be useful and his desire to be a better person is a constant theme throughout the book. He is so hard on himself and I just wanted to hug him. Enter Marissa. I really liked their love story. The star-crossed species lovers really had the deck stacked against them. A human and a vampire is so tragic and beautiful and JR Ward did an excellent job of making me feel the impossibility of their situation. These two are so damn adorable together. But even then, I had some irritation with the constant miscommunication between them. It was too much back and forth with they’re on, they’re off, they fight, they make-up. I was yelling at the book for them to just get their shit together already. Annoying. But that’s my only gripe. Overall, their love story is just as beautiful and compelling as the others. They currently rank number 3 behind Z and Bella and Wrath and Beth and above Rhage and Mary. 

Marissa is also a character I LOVED to see developed further in this installment. I thought she was this quiet, useless female with no drive or opinion but ‘OH SNAP!’ she brought the heat. She had a voice, an opinion, a point of view and I LOVED it. I give JR Ward so much credit because with a book series as intricate as this one with so many books and characters I could see where it would be easy to start having carbon copies of characters. But I've realized that she really does make each character so unique. Not everyone has the personality of a fighter or a loud mouth sarcastic female. But Marissa shows her strength in ways she knows how to. I love this about JR Ward and her characterizations. And one scene in particular with Marissa I cheered out loud and was all YES! You go girl! Her stubborness was a bit over the top at some points but overall she really kicked major ass in this book. Loved it.

The war with the lessers continues and without giving away plot points there is a lot of new info I still need to process through and I can’t wait to see how things go in the next books. Ooooh, I am excited for V…especially after some of the…ahem…situations he found himself in in this book. The condo? Butch? Oh I can’t wait… :) 

Should You Read This? Yes. Of course. I love the Brotherhood and I can’t wait for each and every one of their stories J