Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood Series #2) by J. R. Ward

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

Heart to Heart Interview with J. R. Ward

Heart to Heart: Were you amazed by the success of Dark Lover, the first book in your Black Dagger Brotherhood series? The reviews were fantastic, and the quotes from fellow writers, glowing. Quite a debut! This was your first venture into paranormal fiction, wasn't it?

J. R. Ward: I was totally and completely blown away by how many people got behind this book! Especially because it is the first paranormal I wrote. While I was working on it, I thought, Well, I'm going to write this as I see it in my head and maybe someone else will get it. Turns out a lot of folks did, and for that I am very grateful!

HtoH: Tell us how you got the idea for the series, the construct, the characters. This is a wonderfully complex and rich world.

JRW: So there I was, minding my own business, writing contemporary romances and enjoying it...when all of a sudden over 2,000 pounds of male vampire showed up in my head. I mean, I was shocked! I started to write down what I saw and the whole world was there: the Brothers, the customs, the beliefs, the rules and conflicts. This may seem strange, but I feel like the series is more dreamed than constructed: It came to me and continues to come to me, and I record what I see as faithfully as I can.

HtoH: What are your plans for the series after Lover Eternal?

JRW: After Rhage's book, Zsadist is next in September's Lover Awakened. Of all the brothers, Zsadist is the one that readers are most anxious to see, and I'm really satisfied by the way he came out. I hope others feel the same way. As for the long haul, at this time, there are a total of ten books in my head, two of which involve characters that folks will meet along the way. All of these books focus on the Brotherhood. Then there are some subspecies in the world I'd love to explore.

HtoH: How did a lawyer who worked in healthcare turn out to be a writer? We'd like to know a little about your journey.

JRW: Actually, I was a writer before I was a lawyer! Well, a writer in the sense that I was always working on a story or an idea or had a scene in my head. I started putting what I was thinking about down on paper as soon as I could hold a pencil. My mom has so many partials and full manuscripts and stories and outlines that I wrote while I was still at home. And I kept it up through college and then afterward. I know a number of lawyers who have transitioned into writing for a living, and I think that's because as a lawyer, you have to be comfortable with words and precise in how you use them.

HtoH: What are the books and movies that have inspired you over the years -- were any of them horror or dark fantasy?

JRW: I am a huge horror movie fan! I like the campy ones by Roger Corman; the classics like Alien, Aliens, The Thing, Predator (although that was sci fi, too); anything by Sam Raimi -- especially the Evil Dead series. Well, and then there's Godzilla -- on the morning of my wedding, I watched Godzilla vs. Mothra and was in total heaven. As for vampire movies, they trouble me because the vampires are usually the bad guys! I'm also a huge pop culture freak, so yeah, I like Austin Powers and Caddyshack and Sixteen Candles and Wedding Crashers... I could go on and on... As for books, I am a romance reader! Suzanne Brockmann, Elizabeth Lowell, Shannon McKenna -- I like to read romantic suspense because I look for stories with an edge to them. I've recently started reading paranormals again, and though I shy away from vampires, I've discovered some great writers there too!

HtoH: Last, what about vampires -- why are they endlessly fascinating to us?

JRW: There is something inherently seductive about vampires as well as something otherworldly and vaguely menacing, a danger that puts the knife edge on attraction. Personally, I think they make the perfect hero: powerful, animalistic, intelligent. For the right female, they are the perfect mate!