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Romance
Bet Me
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Wrath, the only purebred vampire left on the planet and leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, has a centuries-old score to settle with the slayers who killed his parents. When his most trusted fighter dies in battle, orphaning a half-breed daughter who has no idea what she actually is, Wrath is forced to set aside his war long enough to usher Beth Randall into a world she does not know exists. Dark Lover launched J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, and two decades later the series remains one of paranormal romance's biggest and most enduring franchises.
The scoring:
Jim Frangione, a 2011 AudioFile Best Voice in Mystery and Suspense award winner, narrates the entire audiobook, and AudioFile's own review of this specific title praised his handling of the romance and vampire mythology while flagging a real limitation: Frangione does not strongly differentiate the voices of the brotherhood's many male vampire warriors, which can make group conversations moderately hard to track by ear alone. It is a fair and specific criticism rather than a vague complaint, and worth knowing before you start a series built around an entire cast of similarly gruff, alpha-coded warriors. Where he clearly succeeds is tone; multiple listeners describe him as bringing genuine smoldering intensity to Wrath and Beth's central dynamic, with the vampire mythology and Ward's dense slang-heavy dialogue landing with real conviction rather than camp.
Who this is for: paranormal romance readers ready to commit to a long-running series with a huge ensemble cast, and fans of alpha-male vampire heroes paired with high-stakes supernatural war plots.
Who this is not for: listeners who rely heavily on distinct character voicing to track a large ensemble cast; AudioFile and multiple listener reviews specifically note the brotherhood's male voices are not strongly differentiated in this narration.
Yes, it is the first novel in what has become a long-running series, with each subsequent book generally centered on a different member of the brotherhood.
Starting with Dark Lover is generally recommended, since it establishes the brotherhood, the world, and ongoing threads that carry through later installments, even though each book has its own central couple.
The series has grown to include dozens of novels and novellas, making it one of the most expansive continuities in the paranormal romance genre.
Written by J.R. Ward. Narrated by Jim Frangione. Browse more Romance audiobooks and ebooks.
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