JR Ward is a God. No question about it.
She has created a world of the most intimate, tender, tough, cool
characters, with the kind of internal struggles and a masterly
interactive dialogue that is unparallelled in her genre. It isn't
realistic dialogue – do you know men who love to talk and examine
their feelings? - but it is touching and what women want. Yet the
latest book suffers from the worst malaise an author of repute can
suffer: Lover Reborn's main storyline doesn't work. It's the exact
fate of Lover Enshrined, where Phury and Cormia are just boring.
Here, Tohr (or Thor as Ward fans still
insist on saying on her FB page, I thought Americans only had
problems with Asian names, maybe they think Tohr is Arabic), is still
in love with his dead wife, still mourning his unborn son, and in a
matter of a few chapters we are to believe that he has fallen in love
again. I think this is a modern day problem, where you are expected
to love again and marry again no matter what, it's as though you are
wanting in some way if you don't. Superficial much? Even the sex
seems mechanical, and that, for Ward, is the coup de grace. But. I
still love her work. There's a gritty, raw essence and deep values of
loyalty and commitment that gets me going till the last page. There
are new characters I've fallen for, like Xcor, and old characters
that still set my heart beating faster, like Qhuinn and Blay. Layla
having Q's baby was a motif introduced in the last book and one gets
the feeling that Ward felt she had to stick to it although it really
is a stumbling block to the developing saga but you get my drift? I
am invested in these people.
This is the mother lode for a writer.
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