This dragged quite a bit - a lot of words but not really any good backstory created. ( )

Wtf! Here I am reading the epilogue and I am in tears. Like we're talking about gut-wrenching sobs. My f*cking tears are blinding me. I can hardly breathe because I'm trying to read and I can't read because my eyes are all watery. And then that ending? Let me guess is it a v or a w? Oh my God and I have to wait until next year to read the rest? Are you effing kidding me?

This is what I'm talking about folks! It took me less than 24 hours to read this entire book. And I am heartbroken. And angry. And hopeful? I guess that's a good word. And anxious because I want to read the next freaking book.

So many authors strive to be like Jr ward.

And very very few actually get to that point. A great author knows how to tell a story, and how to bring you into that story make you part of it. Make you feel every single aspect of the story. And also makes the story easy to follow.

Some people out there like a more complex story but I found in my own experience, if the story is too complex I lose interest. And I skip ahead. Or I just leave the story all together. I don't know if that's your experience but that's mine.

There is nothing more than I hate than a monologue story. A newspaper reporter, standing in front of the camera reading a teleprompter telling you what's going on in the world. With absolutely no reflection. No emotion.

I have read books in the past week, not to mention my entire life, where the story should have feeling. I mean you read a book about abuse and you expect to feel the emotion that this child or adult has gone through. But you feel nothing. And that is what I've been faced with this past week. Reading dark romance or dark tales. And felt absolutely nothing. Disgust, yes but that's about it.

I would love to see Jr Ward tackle book like the ones I've been reading lately. I would love to see how she would weave a tale like the dark books that I have been reading. And the reason that I've been reading them is because I'm looking for that emotion. Not the subject, I'm looking for the emotion. I'm looking for an author who can pull you into the tale and make you feel and experience every single thing that they are feeling and experiencing in that story. And as a survivor, I'll let you read into that all you like, I have this urge to tell the story but not the confidence to actually put it out there for others to read. So therefore, I would love to see what Jr Ward would do with something like that. I would love to see if she could actually bring people into the story, make them see what's going on around them, and make them experience what the person in the story is experiencing. Or has experienced.

God, I hope I explained that correctly.

Everyone always asks me if I would recommend an author to them, and Jr Ward is right up there on the list. My top five. Hell my top three.

honestly probably my very first choice. Because how many people out there, write their books, and can actually share this kind of emotion with people?

That was a rhetorical question. Because we all know the answer. Not many.

I am going to be on pins and needles, literally and figuratively (Ty MS), until the next book. I really really hate this part of reading series. Because you have to wait for so long for the next book.

Someone please tell me that there's something else from her to read between now and then. Because believe me I've covered everything.

For those of you who have read my review, and made it to this point, I would love to add you as a friend. Because I love to read. I love to feel. I love to live vicariously through other people's words. Lol. We all have our crosses to bare and well it's nice to have somebody to connect with in this world. And if you do it through books, all more power.

To Jr Ward, I'm not going to hold my breath and think that you're going to read this review, but if you do, oh my god. I am a fan. You are an inspiration. And if I could be even remotely half as good as you as a writer, I would be a happy camper. Keep up the great work. ( )

Kind of slow

This was not like J.R. Ward's usual fast paced and exciting work. It kind of dragged and was really boring and vague in spots.

I am excited for what is to come but irritated that this went basically nowhere.
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In CLAIMED, Lydia works at the Wolf Study Project. Wolves are being poisoned and a new hotel chain may be to blame. Daniel is a drifter who gets hired on as a groundskeeper.

Mixed feelings on this one. I liked the mystery of what was happening with the poisonings. I really enjoyed the plot line with Xhex and her history of being experimented on and ESPECIALLY how that developed towards the end into it threatening her emotional grid if she didn’t deal with the trauma. Some good page time with BDB characters we don’t always get to see like Rehv and John Matthew and meeting Xhex's brother Blade was interesting.

However, there were also some negatives for me in how this was executed. This is categorized as a paranormal romance, and while the Black Dagger Brotherhood main series is a richly developed vampire world, this book felt like almost no effort was put into developing the world of the Wolven. I love wolf shifter romances. I kept waiting to see the Wolven, to find out about the Wolven, and to see wolf-shifters in action. This barely even felt like a paranormal romance and we don’t even see someone shapeshift at all until 92% of the way through the book. Was it a cool surprise that Lydia was a Wolven? Hell yeah. But by that point I was frustrated that the book was practically over and we weren't going to be getting any answers.

To me, the romance between Daniel and Lydia fell flat.

Ending on a cliffhanger is really tricky to execute well.

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
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3.5 stars.

Intro
After reading The Thief I thought I was done with the series. I was fed up with all the nonsense drama going on with established couples. I was frustrated to see that newly introduced characters were just recycled ones. To me, Sola was a copy of Xhex and Assail of Rehv. In addition, I was frustrated with the lack of solid story arcs in the most recent volumes. I was left wondering, Where were the big bad Omega and Lessening Society? Why the conflict was "seemingly paused", meaning that we got little or nothing going on? I considered the series reaching a stagnation point, with no sign of which direction we were going. When I read the plot of Claimed, though, I found myself to be very interested in the premise: werewolves? yes, please! the main character who wants to protect wolves? Yes! Wolves being endangered by humans? Yes! I studied environmental protection and I love animals. That's probably why this premise sounded awesome to me. Aaand here I am back on the BDB train, with the desire of catching up with the series. However, I would love that we could just get a single BDB multi-POV series, instead of spin-off here and there, since some of the events happening in one spin-off book are relevant for other spin-offs (it seems that the concept of wolven was already mentioned in The Jackal) or for the main series, and vice versa.

Plot: two story arcs
In this volume, we have two arcs. One is from the POVs of Lydia and Daniel, making up around 80-85% of the whole book, and a minor one is from the point of view of Xhex.
The main plot was mainly focused on the investigation carried out by Lydia and Daniel, to figure out who was poisoning the wolves. The romance between them develops slowly and is very sweet, especially if compared with other PNR series (Immortals after dark, for example) or the first books of the series. This is an aspect that I really liked. I am fed up with the "predestined mate" thing, sex from the first page, everything revolves around sex or sexual desire, with no world depth nor interesting plot left.
However, much information is still left unknown. I guess and I hope the second book will again involve Lydia and Daniel, but here we get the revelations at 80-90% with no further explanation of how this came or if the character even knew about it. I will give you an example here but it's a major spoiler, so please, click on it at your own risk. Lydia is the werewolf (I actually thought since the beginning it was Daniel, so that was unexpected). Lydia asks for help from her grandpa. She kinda sees his spirit. Then, she goes saving Daniel as a wolf, and as she got shot she transformed back to a woman. That's it. No further explanation if she knew about it or if, how and when she got transformed into a hybrid or if she was born like that. Also no subsequent conversation about it with Daniel. I am a person who needs to know all the whys of what is written in a book. For some whys, I can be patient and wait to get the answers throughout the series, but for the ones that are related to a key revelation, I am not ok that they are left out. I wished it would have more depth through explanations and flashbacks and that several nonnecessary conversations would have been cut out. The plot felt pretty static probably due to the investigation. I have the same feeling with each book dealing with some investigation. Probably because there is little action.
The minor story arc is pretty vague. Xhex just escaped from some experimentation lab, something that was likely explained in a previous book and I missed something here, but this doesn't affect my rating because it's my fault. We also see some of the other Brothers, especially V and JM, and her brother Blade. Btw, I don't remember him. where did he show up first? I must have missed something here as well. Without entering in details or spoilers, what happened here is pretty is pretty vague. She goes to the Colony and meets with her brother. She also hears a whispering voice in the woods, saying that she has to do something otherwise she will die. Huh? Again, no real explanation of what was going on or who was talking. I hope we'll get more information in the next book. This thread loosely crosses the main one, through Blade and Daniel, but again how they know each is a mystery left unknown.

Characters
Both main characters are well characterized. I loved Lydia from the first page. She's very empathetic and caring. I could not connect very much to Daniel probably due to his cover (?). I also enjoyed to see the other Brothers through Xhex' eyes. It gave me a positive of feeling of connection to the series and, as I said, I would not mind if all these spin-offs would actually become just part of one solid bigger story arc.

Conclusion
Overall I enjoyed this book and made me want to go back to one of my beloved series. I liked that more focus was given on the investigation rather than the romance. What made this lower rating are the holes with lack of explanations for big revelations, the not-so-sympathetic character of Daniel, the static plot, and the cliffhanger, that left me with the feeling that this book was inconcluded. As if the author was writing and a black-out occured. It could have been structured in a way to convey more depth to the world and its events and leave out nonnecessary details of sex scenes and superficial conversations between Lydia and Candy.

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