Blood Promise

*****

5 Stars/5

Rose has made the hardest choice of her life and has left her best friend and person she has sworn to protect, to fulfil her promise to hunt down and kill her former lover and teacher, Dimitri, who has been turned into a Strigoi. She has travelled to Russia to find him, and decides the best way to locate him, is to see Dimitri’s family. At St Vladimir’s, Lissa is missing Rose but at the same time is angry at her for choosing Dimitri over her, however is Lissa’s new friend Avery really helping her. With Rose willing to do anything to destroy Dimitri, will she be able to kill the man she loves or will it end up killing her?

Blood Promise is the fourth book in the Vampire Academy series but it is a bit different than the first 3 as it is not really set at the school and it starts of at a slow pace but the middle and end of the book makes up for this. I found it interesting to see the Strigoi world as they seem both very normal and yet evil at the same time and I wish this world was explored a bit more.

Rose is in a really bad place in this book as she has lost both Dimitri and Lissa, and she goes through so much which makes me feel both sorry for her and want to yell at her. However, one thing I missed in this book was the interaction between Rose and Lissa and the rest of the group as just seeing them at St Vladimir’s through Rose’s head is not the same. However, I did Like Adrian in this book as we get to see a different more caring side of him, not just towards Rose but also Jill and Lissa. Another thing I liked is the complex relationship between Strigoi Dimitri and Rose and their weird love/hate relationship.

While this is one of the weaker Vampire Academy books, Blood Promise is still an excellent book and I can’t recommend this series highly enough.

Shadow Kiss

*****

5 Stars/5

Rose Hathaway is close to graduating and becoming her best friends Lissa’s Guardian. All she has left to do is complete her field experience, where she has to protect Moroi from fake attacks. However, after the tragic events that happened over the winter Rose has been acting erratically, having dark, depressing thoughts and now she thinks she is seeing the ghost of Mason, the friend who died at the hands of a Strigoi. At the same time, she and Dimitri have to protect Lissa whilst struggling against their forbidden feelings for each other. As they are student and teacher, in the world of Moroi and Dhampir, two Dhampir’s should not be together as the Moroi “always come first”. At the same time a group of royals seem to be gathering together which seems to be leading to students getting injured but Rose cannot understand why the royal Moroi would want to harm each other.

Shadow Kiss is the third, and my favourite, book in Vampire Academy series, as the story is interesting, there is more action, tension and the romance is amazing and yet at the same time horrible (I cannot say more without giving away spoilers). I like the politics in this book and how the different races and classes look at now the Moroi should be protected and I can see this being an important plot in a later book.

Rose is much more unstable in this book, and has lost her confidence from the first 2 books since the events of Frostbite, but I felt this added more depth to her character and has shown how much she has changed. Whilst I can relate to Lissa more than Rose, I felt that she was very self-absorbed in this book and does not appreciate her friendship with Rose as much as Rose does with her. I liked how we got to know Christian better in this book as while he is still sarcastic we can also see how strong and loyal he is.

Shadow Kiss ends on a VERY big cliff-hanger and I suggest that you have a copy of Blood Promise next to you when you finish this book as you will not want to wait to see what happens next to Rose and everyone else. I would recommend Shadow Kiss to fans of the first 2 books. 

Frostbite

*****

5 Stars/5

After the largest Strigoi the vampire world has seen, St Vladimir school is on high alert with more guardians being brought in and the students and family are spending their winter holidays at a royal ski resort. However, Rose Hathaway has other problems to focus on with her romantic feelings towards her teacher Dimitri, who might be interested in someone else, with her struggling to spend time with her best friend Lissa without her new boyfriend Christian being around and her absent mother turning up out of the blue. However, when some of Rose’s friends get into trouble it is up to Rose and Christian to rescue them before it is too late.

I love the Vampire Academy series and Frostbite as it has a brilliant plot, unique characters, action suspense and romance. What I also like about this book more than the last was how the story was less about the school drama and more mature, it was also interesting to find out about the different history and social rules of the different types of vampires.

I love Mead's ability to make you care about all of the different characters, as I can really empathises and understand them but especially Rose. I also like the tense relationship between Rose and her mother as it is different from most mother/daughter relationships in YA paranormal books. I love the new charming character Adrian as he adds a new dynamic to the group.

I love Frostbite and would recommend these books to fans of paranormal books or very well written YA books. 

Lack of reviews and changes to my Blog

Hi everyone,

Sorry about the lack and inconsistency of my reviews in the last month. I have not been well enough to focus on reviews. Thankfully I am feeling better now, but whilst ill, I came to the decision that Sally-Anne reviews does not feel like the right name for my blog, therefore I am changing it to Amethyst Bookwyrm. Over the next week or so I will be making improvements to my blog.

Thanks for liking my reviews and coming to my blog.

Sally-Anne

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.