The Black Dagger Brotherhood: 20th Anniversary Insider's Guide

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Synopsis

Over the past two decades, The Black Dagger Brotherhood series, J. R. Ward's world of vampire warriors in black leather, has gained a cult following for its stories filled with passion, drama, and action. In this all new 20th Anniversary Insider's Guide, the author brings readers lots of behind the scenes content including her memories of the time she's spent with the Brothers and writing advice for fellow wordsmiths. She also provides updates on the Brothers, sitting down to talk with them about where they are now. She brings back fan-favorite features such as Ask a Brother, Vishous's Agony Aunt(s) Column, Kitchen Corner with Fritz, Monthly Horoscopes by Lassiter, and Bella's Book Reviews. Then she caps off the book with a brand-new novella, Happy Anniversary, featuring Wrath and Beth that lets readers in on what life was like for Beth and L. W. during the thirty years Wrath was gone as the couple struggles to reignite their relationship after so long apart and get back on the same page when everything is so different for them now. This book will make a wonderful keepsake for everyone who calls themselves a fan of The Black Dagger Brotherhood.

Review

The Black Dagger Brotherhood: 20th Anniversary Insider's Guide is everything the title implies, which is a guide to the first twenty years of The Black Dagger Brotherhood series. It contains all sorts of bits and bites from this world, including character interviews, recipes, horoscopes, an advice column, and more, along with an original novella featuring Wrath and Beth. I've broken it down by sections below to give my thoughts on each one.

An Interview(ish) with The Black Dagger Brotherhood - In the intro to this section, J. R. Ward mentions that when she sat down to write it, she was drawing a blank, until she came up with an intriguing, but meta, idea. Inserting herself into this fictional world as the first-person narrator, she envisions being chauffeured by Fritz up to the mountaintop mansion, where she engages in conversation with each of the OG brothers: Butch, Phury, Rhage, Vishous, Tohrment, Zsadist, and Wrath, in that order. The reason for the "ish" on the word interview is that she's not really interviewing them per se, but instead she's simply conversing with each of them to the extent that they allow it, while expressing her own thoughts and feelings about each of the brothers and what it's been like writing them all these years. Ms. Ward did an excellent job of maintaining each of the brothers individual personalities during the course of their convos. I particularly loved how Vishous plays things close to the vest, and Zsadist is the quiet one who has little to say, just as I would expect from these two favorite Brothers of mine. At times, this section had something of a bittersweet feel to it. The Warden also drops some hints about what the future may hold that piqued my interest and left me hoping that she doesn't do anything too crazy with these beloved characters moving forward.

Ask a Brother - This section includes a couple of reader questions for the Brothers, the answers to which I believe were originally published in The Caldwell Courier Journal newsletters that J. R. Ward used to send out monthly a few years back. These were the only two she said weren't completely outdated with regards to where we currently are in the series. I think I recall these Q & As from those newsletters, but it was fun to reread them, especially Rhage, Qhuinn, Xcor, Z, and Blay arguing about their daughters' future dating lives, which was pretty funny.

Vishous's Agony Aunt(s) Column - This is basically a "Dear Abby" style advice column where the letters (I assume from readers) were answered by Vishous until J. R. Ward realized he was being a little to snarky and direct, so she added Mary's more diplomatic therapist voice to balance out the perspectives. I'm pretty sure that all of these were previously published in the The Caldwell Courier Journal newsletters. I had great fun reading them then, and it was enjoyable rereading them now, mainly because V is so abrasive in his responses, often leaving Mary exasperated, even if he is usually right.

Monthly Horoscopes by Lassiter - This one is pretty self-explanatory, monthly horoscopes written by everybody's favorite fallen angel, that were originally seen in The Caldwell Courier Journal newsletters. Each month has a different theme (eg. The Golden Girls episodes, Pandora playlists, Fourth of July/Thanksgiving foods, and Halloween candy, among others). I freely admit I'm not much for following my horoscope, but some of these were pretty amusing to read.

Missives from the Mansion - Again, I'm pretty sure these couple of quick slice-of-life snippets were originally seen in The Caldwell Courier Journal newsletters. It was a fun way to catch up on what the Brothers and their families were doing between books.

Bella's Book Recommendations - I remember these as well from The Caldwell Courier Journal newsletters. Just as the title suggests, they're synopses and reviews of books written by Bella. On a few of them, she also includes quick Q & A interviews with the authors (Jennifer L. Armentrout, Kennedy Ryan, and Lexi Blake). This section reminds me of Diana Gabaldon's Methadone List, which are suggestions of books readers can check out while waiting for the next Outlander book. This group of books is much the same with some great recs tailored for Black Dagger Brotherhood readers.

Kitchen Corner with Fritz - This section includes several recipes. There's a good variety with dishes for First Meal, Luncheon, and Last Meal as well as desserts. I can't really recall if these were published in The Caldwell Courier Journal or not. Some may have been but probably not all. I'm not much of a cook or a foodie, but there were a few recipes in the mix that sounded pretty good, so I may have to give them a try sometime (or have my daughter who is a good cook make them for me:-)).

BDB Soundtrack - This is a pretty extensive playlist that J. R. Ward uses for inspiration for the BDB. Most of the songs encompass rap, hip hop, and R & B, genres I don't really follow, but for anyone who does, this could be a goldmine.

Bite-Sized BDB - This is a kind of rapid-fire Q & A about the Brothers that encompasses "most likely to..." topics such as who is most likely to start a bar brawl, most likely to break the rules, most likely to be found reading, most likely to get away with murder, etc. as well as "best" topics such as best smile, best dressed, best at keeping secrets, best at giving advice, etc. This was a pretty fun section. Some of the answers are easy to predict (eg. we all know Butch wins best dressed, hands down!), but others were funny or insightful.

For Writers - This section contains several essays J. R. Ward wrote specifically for fellow writers. I believe they were previously published on her social media, but I don't recall ever reading any of them. As a writer myself, I found them encouraging and interesting, so hopefully others will as well.

Happy Anniversary - "Happy Anniversary" is an original BDB novella written specifically for this insider's guide, featuring Wrath and Beth, that takes place after the events of Lover Forbidden. Ever since Wrath "returned from the dead," he and Beth have been struggling to get back in sync with one another. In the previous full-length novel, Wrath had put himself in danger to find a missing civilian vampire, and if I recall correctly, he also engaged the enemy, which scared Beth to death and put him in the doghouse. The last thing Wrath wants after thirty years apart is to lose his shellan or have her giving him the cold shoulder, so he starts doing some serious thinking about what the future looks like for them. As they figure out how to move forward, Beth reminisces about the past three decades when Wrath was gone. Their son, L. W. is still spiraling emotionally and determined to do whatever it takes to kill Lash even if he dies in the process. Meanwhile the Brothers are searching for a couple of civilian vampires, friends of Shuli, who've disappeared from Bathe at the same time others were killed by lessers.

Overall, "Happy Anniversary" was a fantastic story. Beth's flashback sequences fill in a lot of what happened with her and L. W. while Wrath was presumed dead, and let's just say, they didn't really have it easy. Beth did her best to hold down the fort as queen regent, waiting for her son to be ready to take the throne. However, now that he's technically old enough to do so, he wants nothing to do with it, much like how his father was in the beginning. As for L. W., I now understand why he has such a chip on his shoulder and a death wish, and why he pushes Bitty away, feeling unworthy of her. He's definitely going to have some trauma to work through before they can find their HEA. In the present, Wrath and Beth have some work to do to get back on the same page. I admired Wrath for the sacrifice he was willing to make for the love of his life, and I equally admired Beth's courage to allow Wrath to do what he needed to do. I love the compromise they worked out in the end. The background story of the missing and murdered civilians was heartbreaking and I'm sure will lay some ground work for the next installment of the series. For a novella, "Happy Anniversary" had a phenomenal amount of depth to the story and added a lot of dimension to these characters fans have come to love. It had everything I've come to expect from a BDB story: romance, passion, conflict, action, and a happy ending. It was a great addition to the series and I couldn't have asked for more.

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J. R. Ward

Themes

Amazing Animals
Reunion Stories