Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Based upon the panoply of 4 and 5 star reviews, I was pretty excited to pick this first "Brotherhood" book up. However, after the 532 years it took to finish, I must add to the voices of dissention and say I just didn't like this book ... at all. In fact, "Dark Lover" sometimes got me downright angry to be wasting so much time grinding through it. I kept hoping it would start to flow and improve, I kept giving it "another 40 pages..." but it never recovered. The fear of someone else being misguided into believing this is a romantic masterpiece got my hackles up. Therapy is writing this review. I know, I know - there are some reviews here of people who enjoyed this work, so take my opinion for what it is. Still, that doesn't make J.R. Ward even close to the next Julie Garwood, Virginia Henley or Anne Rice. This isn't a romance book in spite of what the publishing blurb says. It a banal mishmash featuring a formulaic psycho killer and his coven, the typical macho cop, the leather-wearing - uh ... dangerous (?) vampire, and an unimpressive heroine... in that order. No really, in that order. The albino psycho gets more page time than anyone else. Be prepared to enjoy the albino psycho constructing his evil plot, the albino psycho musing about his history, the albino psycho growing from his mistakes, and the albino psycho admiring himself in a new set of tennis shorts. Huh? Where's the interaction between hero and heroine? Ohhh right, that's the 3 or 4 pages every 70 pages or so. As the reader, I was desperately trying to fill in the feelings of the characters for the author, trying to flesh out the story, trying very much to avoid comparing it to a C-grade thriller. (*more sarcasm*) I particularly cherished when our hero vampire admired his lover's flawless physical beauty ... even though he was nearly 100% blind. That's right, he _sniffed_ how fine-looking she was. Love is grand.(*end sarcasm*) Admittedly I don't read romances for their literary or innovative value. I _do_ read them for the quixotic escapism, and this didn't have any. It irked me that I had to suffer through a cast of thousands, cliché after cliché, purple prose, and bizarre ineffectual similes such as 'his chest was like 'paint rollers under the skin?' Eewwwww! (I think another review mentioned this too... oh, just so horrifying.) I know these type of books have an amount of predictability to them - romances are read knowing there's a happy ending - so after suffering through 400-ish pages, I guess I wasn't surprised how it closed: yes, the biggest baddest gang of loner vampires end up getting a condo together in the Hamptons. Ok no, not really... but just as dreadful. This book valiantly tried to be so much, and ended up so little. Please, save yourself the money. Or if you feel you really would like to read this, get it used... and please don't hurt the messenger.