Format read: paperback
Genre: paranormal romance
Release Date: June 3, 2008
Length: 534 pages
Publisher: Penguin
Formats available: ebook, paperback, audiobook
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Kobo

Book Blurb:

In this “frightenly addictive” paranormal romance saga, there’s a war raging between vampires and their slayers. Here are the stories of a secret band of brothers like no other – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. And now a dutiful twin must choose between two lives…

Fiercely loyal to the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Phury has sacrificed himself for the good of the race, becoming the male responsible for keeping the Brotherhood’s bloodlines alive. As Primale of the Chosen, he is obligated to father the sons and daughters who will ensure that the traditions of the race survive, and that there are warriors to fight those who want vampires extinguished.

As his first mate, the Chosen Cormia wants to win not only his body but his heart for herself. She is drawn to the noble responsibility behind the emotionally scarred male. But Phury has never allowed himself to know the pleasure or joy. As the war with the Lessening Society grows grim, tragedy looms over the Brotherhood’s mansion, and Phury must decide between duty and love…

My Thoughts:
Considering the ending to the previous book Lover Unbound, which was atrocious, Lover Enshrined may have actually saved this series for me.

Phury is spiralling downward, quickly. He has taken on the responsibility of being the Primale, so Vishous could be with Doc Jane the ghost. But it’s hard to be the saviour of a failing race when one is perpetually high and a virgin.

Cormia, on the other hand, is between a rock and a hard place. Forced into her position as first mate, Cormia is both scared of what is expected of her, giving herself to Phury so he can impregnate her, and ashamed of herself for being afraid, as it is what she has been trained to do her entire life, all she knows is service to the Scribe Virgin and the Primale.

Phury and Cormia as a couple were a little vanilla; neither were overly strong characters. Phury taking refuge in drugs everytime someone so much as raises their voice to him and Cormia who is so scared of what the Directrix —her boss—will think of her for not being grateful to be the first of many to be able to have sex with the Primale that she just hides in her room all day.

Lover Enshrined picks up a few months after the end of Lover Unbound because of this inactivity. It is actually the background storylines that drive this book. In the end I knew what was going to happen with Cormia and Phury, and I didn’t overly care, I was more interested in John’s story once again and the introduction of Rehvenge’s story for the next book.

Ward seems to have taken the same stance with her writing compared to the first few books. In the first three books—Dark Lover, Lover Eternal and Lover Awakened—the main characters were so interesting, so page turningly brilliant that you didn’t want to hear about any one else. I used to get annoyed at the Lesser’s storyline because it cut into vampire time. I still don’t like the Lesser storyline, because anything without the Omega in it doing evil things to people, is just boring because we have to hear about the Lessers’ day to day lives. John’s storyline, Rehvenge’s, Tohr’s and even Blay and Quinn is why I’m still reading this series.

They are the characters I want to know about, the one’s that had me flying through Lover Enshrined once we reached their parts of the story, the one’s that kept this book on my mind while I wasn’t reading it.

Lover Enshrined was standard as far as paranormal romance goes, Phury and Cormia weren’t my kind of characters because they were too dumb to realise what was right in front of them for the first 450 pages. But the B plots are why I will be picking up Lover Avenged.

I give Lover Enshrined 4 stars.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

About Amanda

Amanda-Lee is a proudly addicted reader and writer from Sydney. She lives with her wonderful husband and their more like a baby than a kitten Hamish. Amanda-Lee has been blogging for 4 years now and is a lover of all genres, though she does have a tendancy to stray towards the weird and wonderful concotions in the paranormal and fantasy genres. In addition to being the Winged Lover on BLI she also runs the book blog StoryWings.

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