Genres: Holiday Romance, Paranormal Romance
Published by Gallery Books
Released on November 26, 2019
Pages: 445
Format: eBook
Source: Library
The Delight
I’m always up for a new story in the Black Dagger Brotherhood world even when I’m pretty sure it’s going to really do a number on my heart. For you see, we have a sequel to that heartbreaker, The Shadows, here. But, it’s a Christmas season story and we all know what that means, right?
Review
Where Winter Finds You is #17.5 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. This book needs to be read after The Shadows, but it also has a unique place in the series in that it’s strictly a sequel to that story and doesn’t touch on the main part of the series. It’s an interlude, basically, and can be included or skipped as the reader desires.
Where Winter Finds You begins with Trez in a really bad place. His heart is still a gaping wound for his shelan, Selena, and he simply wants to end it all. His friends worry and some even administer some tough love, but it’s not until he has ongoing encounters with a waitress working at his twin’s restaurant that he drifts away from the edge. Therese is not Selena, but she is her dead ringer. He knows he is wrong to be with her while he is wishing she were and treating her like she is someone else, but he can’t stop. She’s become his world.
Terese left her family and home back in Michigan because she learned after all these years that she was adopted. She feels betrayed about the lie until that moment and now is determined to be independent even if it means living in a cheap apartment and barely making ends meet. Her life is purposeless and she feels something is always missing except for her dream Shadow lover and the real life Trez who she can’t get off her mind. Christmas is a time of magic so maybe this new thing with Trez is just what she needs to help restore her. She knows he is holding back and she has promised to give him space. Hopefully, what they have can survive his secret.
Where Winter Finds You was not a hit out of the park for me. It wasn’t awful and I am glad I read it, but it took For. Ev. Er. for me to get into the story. Trez and Selena were a pair I was meh about even before what came in the Shadows’ ending so I could have taken or left this second half of Trez’s story. But, its Black Dagger Brotherhood world so I wasn’t going to miss even a side story sequel. And, after all the predictable stuff happened and I was drowsing over this one, it finally kicked into gear about two-thirds through.
Terese finally gets her act together over disappearing on her adopted family because she couldn’t process the fact that she’d been adopted and they had recently told her. Terese and Trez have their big secret reveal and boom, it happened how I imagined. But, the pace was definitely moving and the story tighter and crisper. The big climax intensified things into a gripping sequence of moments. That was the good stuff and I finished the remainder of the book how I usually feel while reading a Ward book and finished with a silly grin on my face for the epilogue that was a lovely peek in to a Black Dagger holiday season.
So, it took a bit to kick it into gear, but ended fabulously. I don’t know what to make of the romance in the scheme of all that came before it in the series, but I’ll take it for what it was in this story- Christmas magic. I can definitely recommend this to a die-hard series fan, but also warn others that it is not a good place to jump in. Newbies should definitely start with Dark Lover and go from there.
Challenges Met
Mt. TBR #57
Literary Pickers #98 fire fighting gear
Romanceopoly #69 Fated Folly PNR
Books N Tunes #36 Michael Bubles’ Blue Christmas
Library Love #12
About the Book
WHERE WINTER FINDS YOU BY J.R. WARD
When Trez lost his beloved to a tragic death (The Shadows, Black Dagger Brotherhood #13), his soul was crushed and his destiny seemed relegated to suffering. But when he meets a mysterious female, he becomes convinced his true love has been reincarnated. Is he right? Or has his grief created a disastrous delusion?
Therese has come to Caldwell to escape a rift with her bloodline. The revelation that she was adopted and not born into her family shakes the foundations of her identity, and she is determined to make it on her own. Her attraction to Trez is not what she’s looking for, except the sexy Shadow proves to be undeniable.
Has fate provided a grieving widower with a second chance…or is Trez too blinded by the past to see the present for what it really is? In this sensual, arresting book full of the themes of redemption and self-discovery, two lost souls find themselves at a crossroads where the heart is the only compass that can be trusted…but that may require a courage that neither of them possesses.
Preview
About J.R. Ward
J.R. Ward is the author of over thirty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling series, The Black Dagger Brotherhood. There are more than 15 million copies of Ward’s novels in print worldwide and they have been published in 25 different countries around the world.
After graduating from law school, Ward began working in healthcare in Boston and spent many years as Chief of Staff of one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation. She lives in the south with her incredibly supportive husband and her beloved golden retriever. Writing has always been her passion and her idea of heaven is a whole day of nothing but her computer, her dog and her coffee pot.
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Ah sorry this didn’t hit all the marks for you Sophia Rose, even the Warden can’t hit a home run every time but unlike you I loved Trez and Selena and it tore my heart out when she died and so was so ready and happy with this novel. It just goes to prove that no one person reads the same book. Thanks for sharing glad you liked the ending and you were glad you read it
Yeah, it won’t be a fav, but it was still pretty good. I think I would have liked it more if this was a fav couple like with you. Fun how Lassiter brought it all about. I do love that angel. 🙂
Personally I’m not keen of these ‘interlude’/’.5′ reads as I’m never sure as to their place in the chronological order of things.
That this was not altogether what you hoped for is a shame, that it only finally kicked into gear about two-thirds through frustrating.
Yeah, I wanted to enjoy it thoroughly, but alas it took a bit. 🙂
I haven’t read this one but I usually really like her books. Sorry to hear this one wasn’t great for you.
Yeah, I like her books, too. I think I was expecting it to have more action in it and it was more of an internal conflict story. Still, it was good.
I kind of lost interest in keeping up with the series and have jumped in here and there with the stand alone .5’s in it. I do like the spinoff series, and have been reading those. Glad to hear you enjoyed the story even though it took a long time to get into. I feel sorry for Terese being second choice and fill in for another woman. Not sure how you’d overcome that but I guess it worked? Fab review, Sophia Rose!
It’s not quite as bad as Tohr and Autumn (NoOne)’s thing because in the end there is an interesting twist on their situation, but for most of the book I felt bad for her, too. 🙂
I still have the most recently released regular BDB book, The Sinner to catch up and the latest spin off for that new BDB Prison Camp one, The Jackal to catch up on. And, there’s a new holiday companion one coming out in a few months. LOL I guess I’ll be perpetually behind unless I binge, but I don’t mind being behind.
I’m one of those who left the series b/c of Shadows. I heard he eventually got his HEA, but I just couldn’t do it any longer. Glad you ended up enjoying in the end!
Yeah, that was a heartbreaker of a story. This is the book where he got his HEA, but some feel strongly that this wasn’t the way to go about it. I didn’t feel strongly about the couple so I’m okay with it.
LOL, yep, I’m still hanging in there and enjoying the series and subseries. 🙂
Love your song pick for this one.
Thanks! I felt like this pair were blues and jazz. 🙂
Slow beginning…but at least the ending ended well.
Yes, there was that. 🙂