We all carry an inner beast within us. A beast, we have to fight to break through our skin every day. But for us, it's just the literally way. Rhage is actually turning into one, he shifts when anger, pain are to much to bear. Will he be able to to control his beast well enough to not to hurt his love, his life, his everything, his Mary?
Their story is a great installment to J.R. Ward's "Black Dagger Brotherhood". And you kinda get a hint of the upcoming story. Will that cruel, dangerous, and to-hiself-keeping Zsadist find a way out? How much could Bella already touch him, deep inside and close to his frozen heart? ( )

I gave this book 4 stars because I sincerely think the next book will be even better. I liked the first one, _Dark Lover_, and I agree with the other readers that this one is even more compelling. She really creates a world with this series, and as a reader who gave up on romance some years ago (in favor of fantasy), I have to say this series is bringing me back. This isn't your typical Nora Roberts cookie-cutter story. The author has a punchy urban style that has improved markedly between the two books. She creates her own idiom here, like some of the great pulp-fictionists of the past. There are some awkward moments--e.g. it's "wreaked havoc," not "reeked havoc,"--but overall it was good enough to read twice over two days. The women in this series are a little flaccid for my taste (pun intended, if you've read the books)--I'd like to see what a really powerful woman would do with these testosterone-flooded vampires--but the world of the Brotherhood is truly seductive. One does need to get over the names. They seem a little silly, and no one seems to notice that they are real words in English--I mean, Wrath, Rhage, Vishous, etc. don't seem to be overly allegorical to anyone in the stories. No one says "Wrath, huh? as in the seven deadly sins?" I pretend they're pronounced Euro-style, and that helps. But as a lit prof who reads a lot of pulp, I have to say this is some of the most promising stuff I've read in awhile. And I swore off vampires after Anne Rice got boring. I can't wait for the next one.. ( )

In the second Black Dagger Brotherhood book, Mary Luce is dealing with a lot of issues. Aside from her leukemia returning, she volunteers for a suicide help hotline and meets John, an abused young man who can only communicate through sign language. Even though she and her friend Bella want to help him, Bella knows what John truly is and she contacts the Brotherhood for help.
When Rhage first meets Mary, he knows she’s different from any female he’s ever met. She calms his inner beast—the dragon tattoo on his back literally comes to life, takes over his body, and kills everything in its path—and he’s desperate for the bliss she gives him. Fighting and having sex releases the beast, but he’d rather fight than sleep around. After a century of meaningless flings, he wants something permanent. Unfortunately, he can’t control the beast when in bed with Mary, so he can’t sleep with her.
Mary is stubborn, willful, and wants to protect those she cares about. Her pain over the cancer, her low self-esteem issues, and her lack of trust in Rhage is all understandable and very sad. Rhage’s self-hatred eats away at him, and he’s determined to do whatever he must to keep Mary safe, even betray her. They have a big communication problem. She doesn’t share her pain about her past and the cancer, and he doesn’t tell her about his curse and the problems going on in the vampire world. Though Rhage gets upset with her, as he should, Mary often just accepts his half-truths and refusal to talk. I liked both characters—don’t get me wrong—but I had a hard time respecting them.
Even though I understood Rhage’s reasons and sympathized with him, I don’t like cheating. I thought what he and Mary needed to do in order to solve their intimacy problem was obvious, but they didn’t figure it out until the end of the book, after he cheats on her.
As with the last book, I found it hard to relate to the brothers. Yeah, they’re gorgeous, arrogant badasses, but they take the thug mentality too far. Also, I don’t understand their obsession with name-brand clothes. In fact, the brand name of every single outfit, including jewelry and luggage, that every character wore was always mentioned.
There are some unanswered questions, but they seem to tie directly into the next story. Yay, Z!
I noticed a few typos but nothing major. The writing is good, but there are some awkward word choices. For example, I interpreted the sentence “What’s doing?” as “What’s going on?”
Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to the next one.
4.5 Stars
( )

Omg. My heart broke so many times during this book! ( )

This second book in the series revolves around Rhage (sometimes also called Hollywood for his beautiful looks) and Mary Luce. This was just as entertaining as the previous book and I tore through it. I loved seeing more of the dark and gritty world J.R. Ward came up with, as well as spending more time with the Brotherhood (whose interactions amuse me to no end). But this book only gets 3 stars from me because I'm not fully convinced by the main romance.

Rhage and Mary both definitely suffer from a case of insta-love (or maybe insta-lust) and while they get plenty of page time together, both clothed and naked (heh), I never quite understood why they liked each other beyond the physical attraction and why they work well together as a couple. Their romance wasn't particularly interesting to me, so I had a tendency to rush through their parts of the book to get to more fun parts (like seeing what the other brothers were up to-- also can I just say that I love the fact that they basically took in Butch as kind of an honorary member of the family?).

I'm kind of surprised that J.R. Ward chose to include so many parts from the antagonist's POV, but Mr. O is far more interesting than Mr. X, who was in the last book, but I liked that she tried to flesh out the antagonists. I am intrigued by the Omega, which is the ultimate big bad in this book, and I'm hoping we'll find out more about him/it(??) later on. ( )