I’ve been reading lots of reviews of various and sundry books in J.R. Ward’s vampirific Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and a common thread among reviewers appears to be that the BDB books are their dirty – make that dirrrty – little secret. “I shouldn’t like these,” they admit, their blushes perceptible even across the cold and impersonal electronic aether, “but I just can’t get enough of them!”

I hereby very reluctantly claim full membership in this sorority of shame. I can’t get enough of the Black Dagger Boys, either, and I don’t even like vampires. (Well, I didn’t used to, anyway.) Heaven only knows why. Not so much “stories” as a nine-volume series of robust sex scenes linked by a thin strand of plot, like beads on a slender chain, these novels also boast one of the more hilariously-named casts of characters to pop up in recent years: Wrath, Tohrment, Rhage-with-an-h, and Zsadist, whose name I can’t speak aloud without collapsing into giggles. (There is also, somewhat randomly, a Black Dagger Brother called John Matthew, but he doesn’t really figure in this installment.) There is also, for lack of a better term, a Black Dagger Sister, who really is sister to Black Dagger Brother Vishous. Her name is Payne, and Lover Unleashed is her story.

Payne has only recently been released from a lengthy imprisonment at the hands of her mother, the deity known as the Scribe Virgin. (It’s a long story.) Having sustained a serious injury during a training exercise with Wrath, she is rushed into the care of a former colleague of Vishous’ doctor girlfriend (who is, by the by, a ghost – just roll with it, okay?). The former colleague goes by the manly moniker of – wait for it – Manuel “Manny” Manello, M.D. Does Manny like to eat man-icotti and play the man-dolin? Alas, the text remains gravely silent on these important questions. However, Manny quickly becomes quite fond of Payne, and she of him…but many barriers confront them.

First, he’s human, and vampires love humans not; second, Vishous has an overprotective streak a mile wide and would disapprove of any actual breathing male for his sister. And finally, a vengeful vampire named Xcor has just emigrated from the Old Country to Caldwell, NY (our book’s setting), and he has a, um, xenturies-old xcor to xettle with Payne. (Xorry. I’ll xtop now.) Can Payne and Manny overcome these formidable obstacles and find true happiness in one another’s arms?

J.R. Ward’s greatest strengths have always been her world-building skills and her literary voice, which winningly intermingles machismo and sass. Both are on open display here -- for example, early on we’re told a female character’s breasts “didn’t so much defy gravity as flip it off, insult its mother, and piss on its shoes.” Payne is a delight through and through – she’s a complete innocent (a virgin – of course – who has never seen the inside of a car), and her speech is peppered with archaic constructions (see, for example, the quote up top). But she kicks ass like, well, a Black Dagger Brother, and for all her inexperience she’s remarkably straightforward about what she wants: “I wish to be naked before you. Make it so, Manuel.” (And if you think that Manuel’s response is “Um…later, maybe?” then you’ve obviously never read anything by J.R. Ward.)

More conservative readers should be aware that if you can think of a flavor of sexual experience, Ward probably works it in here. Partnered S&M, sadomasochistic self-gratification, male-on-male fellatio, and at least one three-way encounter are all to be found herein and described in enthusiastic detail. Vishous – who spends the first half of the book seriously needing to get over himself – is re-experiencing certain trauma from his past, and is only healed after a therapeutic session with his best friend, Butch, whose highly unorthodox technique will surely not be widely adopted among members of the American Psychological Association. And you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about the tip (specifically the tip) of manly Manny’s, er, Little Man.

And then there’s Qhuinn, or, as he’s known around my house, Qwhine. “Oh, boo hoo hoo, the man I secretly love is in a relationship with somebody else, but instead of tell anyone about it I’d rather go on a hunger strike, and when the boyfriend all but tells me that the man I secretly love is also secretly in love with ME, I STILL don’t go talk to the guy! It’s much more fun to lounge around like a consumptive nineteenth century poet and pout and brood and pine.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cry moar, emo ghey nightwalker.

My issues with Qhuinn aside, this book is balls-out (literally) fun, and I recommend it for mature and open-minded readers who crave some hot vampire lovin’. If you’re not yet in on the dirrrty little secret, won’t you join me in the Sorority of Shame?

  -- Kate Nagy