Also-why was everyone disappointed about Butch? I didn't read it-but for him to get together with Marissa didn't he HAVE To become one? Plus, wasn't he becoming an AA candidate in the last one? (I forgot) Thos two tip offs to me meant he was going to be one. And he loved the Brotherhood, so I have to admit, I wasn't so stoked for LR because I guessed where she was going with it.

Eva, no, Butch was not a candidate in the previous book and I don’t think he had to be a vampire to be with Marissa. My own disappointment in his change stems from the fact that I liked him better than the vampire characters because the fact that he wasn’t super-hero strong and was filled with insecurities about that made him feel more flesh-and-blood real to me, in comparison with the Brotherhood, and this made me care about him more.

Also, I don’t expect fantasies, especially sexual and romantic ones, to always conform with the politics of women’s liberation and other issues. I can accept a certain degree of regressive elements for that reason, and I will often follow an author whose books are progessive in some regards, to see if that impulse toward progressiveness will break free in future books. To take your example of Rosenthal, even though I did not care for Almost a Gentleman, in large part because it wasn’t as progressive as I wanted it to be, I continued to read her and was rewarded with the (in my opinion) very daring The Slightest Provocation.

To get back to Ward, although it was not the case for me with Lover Revealed, I do agree with you that often the side characters are the most exciting. I will be very interested to see where Ward goes with Xhex, for example. And I will be sorry when John Matthew goes through his transition. But the fact that the side characters are more interesting doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the books overall. I have yet to love one of her books eough to give it an A- or A, but they have all been solidly in the B range for me. And since I enjoyed Lover Revealed most (it was one book where the main characters interested me most), I’m feeling more optimistic about the series than you are.

I’m working on it. :)

Also-why was everyone disappointed about Butch? I didn’t read it-but for him to get together with Marissa didn’t he HAVE To become one? Plus, wasn’t he becoming an AA candidate in the last one? (I forgot) Thos two tip offs to me meant he was going to be one. And he loved the Brotherhood, so I have to admit, I wasn’t so stoked for LR because I guessed where she was going with it.

Maybe the reason Butch and Marissa felt more magnetic to me than Btuch and V was that Butch and Marissa were the first couple in the BDB series that felt like equals to me. Marissa, although she was a vampire, was just coming into some power, and Butch for most of the book was human and as vulnerable as she was (I was actually disappointed that Butch was turned into a vampire at the end). They were on equal ground, each had his or her strengths and weaknesses, but they were more or less equals and I found that really, really sexy.

Butch and V were never equals, so that relationship, as interesting as it was, just wasn’t as hot to me. Butch felt like V’s pet in that relationship, and so, it doesn’t have the same appeal to me.

I liked V’s feelings and I didn’t think Ward needed to make so explicit the fact that nothing would happen between him and Butch, but they never, ever felt like the real couple of the book to me because the zing between Butch and Marissa was just so potent.