Vampire Academy

*****

5 Stars/5

Rose Hathaway and her best friend Lissa have been hiding from their old school St Vladimir’s for the last two years but now they have finally been caught. However, St Vladimir’s is not an ordinary school, it is a school for Moroi, living vampires and Dhampir, half humans, half vampire whose job it is to protect the Moroi from the undead and evil vampires Strigoi. With Lissa being the last of her royal family and the bond between the two of them since they both survived the car accident that killed Lissa’s family, all Rose wants to do is to protect Lissa as her guardian, but to do this she must stay out of trouble. That might be tricky with Rose falling for a forbidden guy, vicious rumours about both Lissa and Rose, Lissa’s going down a deep road of depression and someone knowing their secret, will they be able to survive school.

Vampire Academy is a brilliant book which has politics, action, danger, romance and a kick-ass heroine who you can help but love. I like the different versions of vampires and the background we learn about them.

I love Rose as she is the type of person I wish she could be as she is caring, protective, confident and willing to fight for what she believes in. I also like Lissa as I felt I could connect with her really well and I liked how the friendship between both of them was portrayed. I liked all of the characters in this book as they are all unique and I can’t describe them all, but I have to say I love Dimitri as he is my favourite male hero as he is strong, calm and caring. I like the bad person in this book as I did not predict who it was or what was going to happen next.

I love Vampire Academy and cannot recommend this series highly enough to anyone who likes paranormal or just great books. 

Arrow of the Mist

***

3 Stars/5

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me this book to review.

Barbed roots are breaking through from the land of Brume, and terror strikes the kingdom of Nemetona. When Lia’s father is poisoned Lia, her grandfather, her cousin Wynn and his best friend Kelven, travel to the forbidden land of Brume to use Lia’s herbal knowledge to find a cure. The further Lia travels into Brume the more she grows in tune with the land and with many ingredients to find and a powerful enemy to defeat, is Lia able to create the cure in time.

Arrow of the Mist is a nice light fantasy book which a good adventure for children and older. However, I felt the book went into too much depth with certain subjects while barely mentioning other important stuff, this means that the book did not flow easily.

I liked Lia, but I felt she and the other characters did not grow in the book, even when she discovers new things about herself, she does not change. Also the romance was a bit bland as it was wrapped up with in the first half of the book and then was not really mentioned again; therefore we did not see the romance expand. I however, liked seeing the different mystical creatures and how this book remained me of classic fantasy novels.

Arrow of the Mist is a nice light read and I would recommend to fans of classic fantasy books for children or YA.

Song of the Moon

**

2 Stars/5

Artemis’s life is changed forever when she meets the man she has been dreaming about, Ares, who claims she is a werewolf and is also his mate. With the humans being killed, will Artemis be able to accept herself, her mate and her destiny? I read Song of the Moon because I really liked Banks book, Mercenary, but unfortunately I just found this book OK as I could not connect to the characters. I especially did not like how the main characters are either part of, or OK with killing or enslaving humans, and as a human myself I am against this.