Title: Lover At Last
Author: J.R. Ward
Series: Black Dagger Brotherhood, #11
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: NAL (Imprint of Penguin)
Date Published: March 26th, 2013
Edition: Hardcover
Rating:
Qhuinn, son of no one, is used to being on his own. Disavowed from his bloodline, shunned by the aristocracy, he has finally found an identity as one of the most brutal fighters in the war against the Lessening Society. But his life is not complete. Even as the prospect of having a family of his own seems to be within reach, he is empty on the inside, his heart given to another….
Blay, after years of unrequited love, has moved on from his feelings for Qhuinn. And it’s about time: The male has found his perfect match in a Chosen female, and they are going to have a young—just as Qhuinn has always wanted for himself. It’s hard to see the new couple together, but building your life around a pipe dream is just a heartbreak waiting to happen. As he’s learned firsthand.
Fate seems to have taken these vampire soldiers in different directions… but as the battle over the race’s throne intensifies, and new players on the scene in Caldwell create mortal danger for the Brotherhood, Qhuinn finally learns the true definition of courage, and two hearts who are meant to be together… finally become one.
My Review:
Qhuinn and Blay’s relationship has been a back story going on in the BDB series since Phury’s book (book 6). So it’s a relationship that has been stewing and nearly boiling over for quite awhile. But for as long as it’s taken for the two males to get their own book it has been a journey in itself to watch them throughout the other books as well.
To start, I wanted to address some of the reviews I’ve read that have said that they were “robbed” of their page time and story. I have to totally disagree with that. First off, Qhuinn and Blay have gotten more page time throughout the entire series since they first made an appearance than the majority of any other characters to-date. Secondly, Ward has been following a similar format of multiple storylines and POVs for the past five books, including this one, sometimes from previous couples and other times setting up future couplings. So yes, there were your typical side stories in this one. But no, Blay and Qhuinn were not pushed to the background. They had a lot of page time, just as much as any other couple for the past several books has had.
The other thing I want to bring up in regards to the reviews I’ve been reading is how Blay and Qhuinn “don’t get together until the last 10 pages”. First off they “get together” plenty of times and of course their entire portfolio of issues are not going to be instantly resolved at the beginning of the book. How would that possibly make sense? No, they aren’t happily together for the entire book because they have to work towards that point. In what romance, from Ward or otherwise, do the couples get together for good at the beginning of the book? That just makes absolutely no sense.
Anyways, I just wanted to bring those couple of things up that I’ve read in several reviews because they really bugged me. I think so many people have put these two guys up on a pedestal so high that even Ward couldn’t make them happy with the outcome and I don’t think these types of reviews are really fair when it comes to the overall picture.
But I digress. For me personally the book absolutely did their story justice. Being that this is a m/m romance in a fairly mainstream series I was truly impressed that Ward didn’t hold anything back. I was halfway expecting fade-to-black scenes when it came to the sexy times. But no, Ward pulls out all the stops for this one and I was happy with it. Not just the sex, but also I think the last few hurdles that Blay, and especially Qhuinn, needed to overcome in order to be together for the long haul happened in this book and I thought it all was done very well.
Aside from Qhuinn and Blay we get more of Xcor and Layla’s POVs, which I personally enjoyed although I’m not sure how that relationship will play out in the long run. But my favorite POVs were some new ones: Assail and Sola, and Trez and his brother iAm. These two side stories I found particularly entertaining, especially Assail and Sola, who were playing a bit of cat and mouse — then cat becomes mouse and vice versa — for the majority of their portions of the book. I definitely am hoping that their story will be after The King because they’re quite a pair already.
Overall this was another BDB that I easily sunk my teeth into and didn’t let go until the very last page. I truly love the world Ward has created and really the next book cannot get here fast enough! 
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