Lover at Last was a book I've been waiting a very long time for. Unfortunately, I stalled out at book 10 of the BDB series for quite a while and never got back around to this one. Finally having finished it, I can say I did really enjoy it, but there were elements that actually disappointed me, namely Blay.

The frustrating thing I have find with Ward's characters is that she seems to insert a lot of unnecessary drama and cruelty into her relationships; take Tohr and Autumn's relationship in the last book for example. This just becomes painful to read and then makes it really difficult to understand in some cases how they can just go from this to 'happily ever after'. Although there was some minor attempt at a resolution in this one because it wasn't only Blay who had been a mean in this relationship;

it was just Blay in this book that was mean.

On the other hand, I think it's good that in a major paranormal series, which focuses so much on masculinity and 'maleness' that we saw a M/M romance in this series. I would actively like to see more diversity in this series and the paranormal genre in general. I think, in general the whole M/M romance side of things was well-done.

Having said this, as much as I love Qhuinn and Blay, Assail stole the show for me a little bit in this book. I did not expect to like him so much, but he just felt like a darker, edgier Rehvenge who I really loved. I'm saddened that I have to wait 5 books to hear his story. It seems to me that Ward has built up a big bunch of fantastic new and old secondary characters: Xcor, iAm, Trez, Assail and the rest of the Band of Bastards who have just been overlooked to focus on the older couples again following this book. To me it just seems strange that she'll bring in new characters and make them feature quite a lot, and then withhold their stories for so long. However, Ward did strengthen the secondary sub-plots a lot more for me in this instalment, than in Lover Reborn which had felt slower and less action-y, so that was a vast improvement on the last book in the series I read.

Finally, the one thing I will say is Ward manages to pack a lot into each of her books and its impressive that she can still weave multiple plot-lines and characters so cohesively with the ever-growing cast. I am excited to keep reading his series, but just a tad disappointed by this one. Although, maybe my expectations were so high because I've been waiting so long, and after reading a lot of great urban-fantasy recently, I feel that I just wanted that little bit more.