Gallery Books a division of Simon & Schuster is generously offering a copy of the book details below.
Enjoy!
ASIN:1508299609
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: 3-24-2020
Length:
15 hours-38 minutes
Black Dagger Brotherhoo #18
Purchase Link
ADD TO: GOODREADS
Overview:
Jo Early has no idea what her true nature is, and when amysterious man appears out of the darkness, she is torn between their erotic connection and the sense that something is very wrong.
Fate anointed Butch O’Neal as the Dhestroyer, the fulfiller of the prophecy that foresees the end of the Omega. As the war with the Lessening Society comes to a head, Butch gets an unexpected ally in Syn. But can he trust the male—or is the warrior with the bad past a deadly complication?
With time running out, Jo gets swept up in the fighting and must join with Syn and the Brotherhood against true evil. In the end, will love true prevail...or was the prophecy wrong all along?
Fate anointed Butch O’Neal as the Dhestroyer, the fulfiller of the prophecy that foresees the end of the Omega. As the war with the Lessening Society comes to a head, Butch gets an unexpected ally in Syn. But can he trust the male—or is the warrior with the bad past a deadly complication?
With time running out, Jo gets swept up in the fighting and must join with Syn and the Brotherhood against true evil. In the end, will love true prevail...or was the prophecy wrong all along?
Meet J.R. Ward at her event in Cincinnati, OH
Sneak Peek at THE SINNER:
Route 149
Caldwell, New York
Behind the wheel of her ten-year-old car, Jo Early bit into the Slim Jim and chewed like it was her last meal. She hated the fake-smoke taste and the boat-rope texture, and when she swallowed the last piece, she got another one out of her bag. Ripping the wrapper with her teeth, she peeled the taxidermied tube free and littered into the wheel well of her passenger side. There were so many spent casings like it down there, you couldn’t see the floor mat.
Up ahead, her anemic headlights swung around a curve, illuminating pine trees that had been limbed up three-quarters of the way, the puff y tops making toothpicks out of the trunks. She hit a pothole and bad-swallowed, and she was coughing as she reached her destination.
The abandoned Adirondack Outlets was yet another commentary on the pervasiveness of Amazon Prime. The one-story strip mall was a horseshoe without a hoof, the storefronts along the two long sides bearing the remnants of their brands, faded laminations and off -kilter signs with names like Van Heusen/Izod, and Nike, and Dansk the ghosts of commerce past. Behind dusty glass, there was no merchandise available for purchase anymore, and no one had been on the property with a charge card for at least a year, only hardscrabble weeds in the cracks of the promenade and barn swallows in the eaves inhabiting the site. Likewise, the food court that united the eastern and western arms was no longer offering soft serve or Starbucks or lunch.
As a hot flash cranked her internal temperature up, she cracked the window. And then put the thing all the way down. March in Caldwell, New York, was like winter in a lot of places still considered northerly in latitude, and thank God for it. Breathing in the cold, damp air, she told herself this was not a bad idea.
Nah, not at all. Here she was, alone at midnight, chasing down the lead on a story she wasn’t writing for her employer, the Caldwell Courier Journal. Without anyone at her new apartment waiting up for her. Without anyone on the planet who would claim her mangled corpse when it was found from the smell in a ditch a week from now.
Letting the car roll to a stop, she killed the headlights and stayed where she was. No moon out tonight so she’d dressed right. All black. But without any illumination from the heavens, her eyes strained at the darkness, and not because she was greedy to see the details on the decaying structure.
Nope. At the moment, she was worried she was about to provide fodder for True Crime Garage. As unease tickled her nape, like someone was trying to get her attention by running the point of a carving knife over her skin—
Her stomach let out a howl and she jumped. Without any debate, she went diving into her purse again. Passing by the three Slim Jims she had left, she went straight-up Hershey this time, and the efficiency with which she stripped that mass-produced chocolate of its clothing was a sad commentary on her diet. When she was finished, she was still hungry and not because there wasn’t food in her belly. As always, the only two things she could eat failed to satisfy her gnawing craving, to say nothing of her nutritional needs.
Putting up her window, she took her backpack and got out. The crackling sound of the treads of her running shoes on the shoulder of the road seemed loud as a concert, and she wished she wasn’t getting over a cold. Like her sense of smell could be helpful, though? And when was the last time she’d considered that possibility outside of a milk carton check.
She really needed to give these wild-goose chases up.
Two-strapping her backpack, she locked the car and pulled the hood of her windbreaker up over her red hair. No heel toeing. She leftright-left’d it, keeping the soles of her Brooks flat to quiet her footfalls. As her eyes adjusted, all she saw were the shadows around her, the hidey-holes in corners and nooks formed by the mall’s doorways and the benches pockets of gotcha with which mashers could play a grown‑up’s game of keep away until they were ready to attack.
When she got to a heavy chain that was strung across the entry to the promenade, she looked around. There was nobody in the parking lots that ran down the outside of the flanks. No one in the center area formed by the open-ended rectangle. Not a soul on the road that she had taken up to this rise above Rt. 149.
Jo told herself that this was good. It meant no one was going to jump her.
Her adrenal glands, on the other hand, informed her that this actually meant no one was around to hear her scream for help.
Refocusing on the chain, she had some thought that if she swung her leg over it and proceeded on the other side, she would not come back the same.
“Stop it,” she said, kicking her foot up.
She chose the right side of the stores, and as rain started to fall, she was glad the architect had thought to cover the walkways overhead. What had been not so smart was anyone thinking a shopping center with no interior corridors could survive in a zip code this close to Canada. Saving ten bucks on a pair of candlesticks or a bathing suit was not going to keep anybody warm enough to shop outside October to April, and that was true even before you factored in the current era of free next-day shipping.
Down at the far end, she stopped at what had to have been the ice cream place because there was a faded stencil of a cow holding a triple decker cone by its hoof on the window. She got out her phone.
Her call was answered on the first ring.
“Are you okay?” Bill said.
“Where am I going?” she whispered. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s in the back. I told you that you have to go around back, remember?”
“Damn it.” Maybe the nitrates had fried her brain. “Hold on, I think I found a staircase.”
“I should come out there.”
Jo started walking again and shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “I’m fine—yup, I’ve got the cut through to the rear. I’ll call you if I need you—”
“You shouldn’t be doing this alone!”
Ending the connection, she jogged down the concrete steps, her pack bouncing like it was doing push-ups on her back. As she bottomed out on the lower level, she scanned the empty parking lot—
The stench that stabbed into her nose was the kind of thing that triggered her gag reflex. Roadkill . . . and baby powder?
She looked to the source. The maintenance building by the tree line had a corrugated metal roof and metal walls that would not survive long in tornado alley. Half the size of a football field, with garage doors locked to the ground, she imagined it could have housed paving equipment as well as blowers, mowers, and snowplows.
The sole person-sized door was loose, and as a stiff gust from the rainstorm caught it, the creak was straight out of a George Romero movie—and then the panel immediately slammed shut with a clap, as if Mother Nature didn’t like the stink any more than Jo did.
Taking out her phone, she texted Bill: This smell is nasty.
Aware that her heart rate just tripled, she walked across the asphalt, the rain hitting the hood of her windbreaker in a disorganized staccato. Ducking her hand under the loose nylon of the jacket, she felt for her holstered gun and kept her hand on the butt.
The door creaked open and slammed shut again, another puff of that smell releasing out of the pitch-black interior. Swallowing through throat spasms, she had to fight to keep going and not because there was wind in her face.
When she stopped in front of the door, the opening and closing ceased, as if now that she was on the verge of entering, it didn’t need to catch her attention and draw her in.
So help her God, if Pennywise was on the other side . . .
Glancing around to check there were no red balloons lolling in the area, she reached out for the door.
I just have to know, she thought as she opened the way in. I need to . . . know.
Leaning around the jamb, she saw absolutely nothing, and yet was frozen by all that she confronted. Pure evil, the kind of thing that abducted and murdered children, that slaughtered the innocent, that enjoyed the suffering of the just and merciful, pushed at her body and then penetrated it, radiation that was toxic passing through to her bones.
Coughing, she stepped back and covered her mouth and nose with the crook of her elbow. After a couple of deep breaths into her sleeve, she fumbled with her phone.
Before Bill could say anything over the whirring in his background, she bit out, “You need to come—”
“I’m already halfway to you.”
“Good.”
“What’s going on—”
Jo ended the call again and got out her flashlight, triggering the beam. Stepping forward again, she shouldered the door open and trained the spear of illumination into the space.
The light was consumed.
Sure as if she were shining it into a bolt of thick fabric, the fragile glowing shaft was no match for what she was about to enter.
The threshold she stepped over was nothing more than weather stripping, but the inch-high lip was a barrier that felt like an obstacle course she could barely surmount—and then there was the stickiness on the floor. Pointing the flashlight to the ground, she picked up one of her feet. Something like old motor oil dripped off her running shoe, the sound of it finding home echoing in the empty space.
As Jo walked forward, she found the first of the buckets on the left. Home Depot. With an orange-and-white logo smudged by a rusty, translucent substance that turned her stomach.
The beam wobbled as she looked into the cylinder, her hand shaking. Inside there was a gallon of glossy, gleaming . . . red . . . liquid. And in the back of her throat, she tasted copper—
Jo wheeled around with the flashlight.
Through the doorway, the two men who had come up behind her without a sound loomed as if they had risen out of the pavement itself, wraiths conjured from her nightmares, fed by the cold spring rain, clothed in the night. One of them had a goatee and tattoos at one of his temples, a cigarette between his lips and a downright nasty expression on his hard face. The other wore a Boston Red Sox hat and a long camel-colored coat, the tails of which blew in slow motion even though the wind was choppy. Both had long black blades holstered handles down on their chest, and she knew there were more weapons where she couldn’t see them.
They had come to kill her. Tracked her as she’d moved away from her car. Seen her as she had not seen them.
Jo stumbled back and tried to get out her gun, but her sweaty palms had her dropping her phone and struggling to keep the flashlight—
And then she couldn’t move.
Even as her brain ordered her feet to run, her legs to run, her body to run, nothing obeyed the panic-commands, her muscles twitching under the lockdown of some invisible force of will, her bones aching, her breath turning into a pant. Pain firework’d her brain, a headache sizzling through her mind.
Opening her mouth, she screamed—
My Review:
The Sinner
JR Ward
Narrated by Jim Frangione
JR Ward
Narrated by Jim Frangione
Story:
Ward’s 18th book in her Internationally Bestselling series The Black Dagger Brotherhood does live up to all the hype, in this installation JR focuses on journalist Jo Early who fans learn may be a half breed but wait until you find out who she’s related to (no I’m not telling) and the Bastard Syn who until now readers/listeners don’t know too much about but wow what a surprise package he is. As a couple the attraction is instant but the obstacles they need to overcome to be together may just be too big and too many to weather. If that’s not enough she’s also dealing with the end of an era, is the war with the Lessening society really nearing an end? You’ll have to find that out for yourself. With Ward’s iconic in your face descriptive narrative, recognizable Caldwell backdrops and take no prisoners, f-bombing, hot-fast car loving Brothers fans will have no trouble investing 100% in this fantastic novel learning more about the stars Jo and Syn and being witness to the end of a Black Dagger Brotherhood era while wondering what in the world she can do to top it.
Reading this series in order is an absolute must, long time fans are able to skip around a bit bu new readers will find themselves totally lost at this point.
Ward’s 18th book in her Internationally Bestselling series The Black Dagger Brotherhood does live up to all the hype, in this installation JR focuses on journalist Jo Early who fans learn may be a half breed but wait until you find out who she’s related to (no I’m not telling) and the Bastard Syn who until now readers/listeners don’t know too much about but wow what a surprise package he is. As a couple the attraction is instant but the obstacles they need to overcome to be together may just be too big and too many to weather. If that’s not enough she’s also dealing with the end of an era, is the war with the Lessening society really nearing an end? You’ll have to find that out for yourself. With Ward’s iconic in your face descriptive narrative, recognizable Caldwell backdrops and take no prisoners, f-bombing, hot-fast car loving Brothers fans will have no trouble investing 100% in this fantastic novel learning more about the stars Jo and Syn and being witness to the end of a Black Dagger Brotherhood era while wondering what in the world she can do to top it.
Reading this series in order is an absolute must, long time fans are able to skip around a bit bu new readers will find themselves totally lost at this point.
Narrative:
This is one series, in fact the only series I pre-order the audible just to listen to Jim Frangione who is the voice of the BDB and he did not disappoint in this one either. Even with such a low vocal resonance Jim manages to portray the female characters very well and of course, as always does a bang up job on all the male characters.
This is one series, in fact the only series I pre-order the audible just to listen to Jim Frangione who is the voice of the BDB and he did not disappoint in this one either. Even with such a low vocal resonance Jim manages to portray the female characters very well and of course, as always does a bang up job on all the male characters.
Since moving to Caldwell and joining the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Syn of the Band of Bastards has satisfied his crave for killing by doing hits for the Caldwell mob that is until one Mob boss puts the hit out for the wrong reporter.
Newspaper journalist Jo Early has spent the last few years on her own time investigating some rather unsettling occurrences of paranormal activity in and around Caldwell and she’s convinced that Vampires do exist. Then one night while investigating a real news story she meets a mysterious man who makes her feel things she’s not sure she wants to. And if that’s not enough she’s convinced she’s dying because something strange is going on with her body.
Meanwhile on the mean streets of Caldwell the prophecy predicts the Vampire’s war with the Lessening Society is coming to an end and Butch former cop now known as the Dhestroyer is the Brotherhood’s secret weapon.
The Series
DARK LOVER: http://bit.ly/2GwD9ro
LOVER ETERNAL: http://bit.ly/2FPAHgx
LOVER AWAKENED: http://bit.ly/2Cy68Jg
LOVER REVEALED: http://bit.ly/2FFRJ1x
LOVER UNBOUND: http://bit.ly/2MljlcV
LOVER ENSHRINED: http://bit.ly/2Cy6dN4
LOVER AVENGED: http://bit.ly/2RK4yyb
LOVER MINE: http://bit.ly/2AU6KJ6
LOVER UNLEASHED: http://bit.ly/2S6QLBr
LOVER REBORN: http://bit.ly/36BpF8r
LOVER AT LAST (Blay & Qhuinn): http://bit.ly/2O6QkDI
THE KING: http://bit.ly/2GvWBEH
THE SHADOWS (Trez & Selena pt. I): http://bit.ly/2RBwKSl
– BLOOD KISS*: http://bit.ly/38Kis7q
THE BEAST (Rhage/Mary/Bitty pt. I): http://bit.ly/2O8JBsR
– BLOOD VOW* (Rhage/Mary/Bitty pt. II): ? http://bit.ly/2RWBVuY
THE CHOSEN (Xcor/Layla/Blay/Qhuinn): http://bit.ly/3aTSgsY
– BLOOD FURY* (Saxton & Ruhn): http://bit.ly/2U6x75S
THE THIEF (Assail & Sola): http://bit.ly/2S03jZ1
– PRISONER OF NIGHT*: http://bit.ly/37Gi3CU
THE SAVIOR: http://bit.ly/2H49is2
– BLOOD TRUTH* (Boone & Helania; Syn): http://bit.ly/2Rzo6DR
WHERE WINTER FINDS YOU (Trez & Selena pt.2): http://bit.ly/32CEcQ0
*The inset titles are BDB Legacy books
eBooks in the BDB World:
FATHER MINE (this is in the BDB INSIDER’S GUIDE): http://bit.ly/2HpVIB9
STORY OF SON (in DEAD AFTER DARK anthology): http://bit.ly/2FEOAPE
DEAREST IVIE: http://bit.ly/315NzIk
About the Warden:Don’t forget to sign-up for exclusive Black Dagger Brotherhood original content:
https://jrward.us20.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9963a331604291f164fc10413&id=2c5b6cefec
I've never read this series before. Author is new to me as well
ReplyDeleteif you like fantasy you will love this
DeleteWrath is. Thanks for this captivating giveaway.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah Wrath is awesome. I think mine is between Tor and Rhage
DeleteI am so behind in this series. Glad to see it is still going strong.
ReplyDeletevery strong Nadene
DeleteGreat to get an audio review copy of a series you love. I have only read and don't think I've listened to any of the audio. I feel that way about the J. D. Robb narrator. This one sounds every bit as good as all of them.
ReplyDeleteOoh I've never listened to Eve and Roarke hmmm maybe I should ;-)
DeleteNew series to me, so I don't know but it looks great.
ReplyDeleteThis is one series you have to start at the beginning
DeleteZdadist
ReplyDeleteGotta love Z :)
DeleteI haven't read too many audio books, but this seems intriguing. I like the cover as well :)
ReplyDeleteBeena @ Beena Khan
yes it is
DeleteI should continue, I've read and enjoyed the first 4 or 5. Great review Debbie!
ReplyDeletethanks Kim
DeleteWard, that was long ago for me
ReplyDeleteit's very long running series
DeleteYay to you for putting the list together from when it all started. I fell madly in love with Rhage, and all these books are fabulous. Air Hugs and be safe! RO
ReplyDeleteI can't take the credit RO it's on the Warden's website but I'm glad to share :)
DeleteYes to Rhage bc he's such a pussycat when it comes to Bitty and Mary
I love this series. Looking forward to reading this.
ReplyDeleteme too Mary and you'll love it
DeleteThis sounds a good story and I'm adding to my list to read next.
ReplyDeletethanks for stopping by
DeleteThanks for the giveaway chance Debbie and hope you are doing well!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome Ali, a little stir crazy but doing okay. Stay safe xo
DeleteI would love to catch up on this series. I’ve read the first 7 or 8 and enjoyed them . This sounds really good too.
ReplyDeleteoh yes you need to catch up Jenea!
DeleteRhage is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteone of mine too!
Delete