Bloodlines (edition 2011)

I have been Richelle Mead fans since Vampire Academy, and when her new series was out, you could only imagine how excited I was. And yeah, in such a short time, I managed to get my hand on Bloodlines (even though I could only review it now).

This book told us about the alchemist Sidney Sage, the one whose clan’s job was to keep vampires unknown to humans.
When she had been helping Rose Hathaway, who used to be a fugitive, Sidney was having a hard time with the Alchemist, nearly branded as a vampire-lover, and all that.
As her final chance, and a desperate attempt to kept her sister out of the Alchemist’s world, Sidney accept another job in Palm Spring, where she had to guard Jill-the queen’s sister-from an assasination.

I love how we get to see the world from Sidney’s point-of-view, as she saw it truly differently from Rose. The inner struggle she experienced was told quite nicely too, and I found it truly believable.
The plot was sagging at first, but halfway through the book, I was totally hooked and couldn’t turn the page fast enough. The tension was well-built too, with an undistinctive drop of hint here and there, and unpredictable outcome that no one would’ve guessed.

The character was great too. I found that Sidneywas rapidly growing throughout this book rather that in VA, where she was a bit vague.
In Bloodlines, reader get a better looks at how she dealt with live, and what pressure she had to bear. I also like her unique characteristic, beng a coffee-addict and a neat perfectionist.
Adrian Ivashkov, was very likeable too, with a distinctive temper that truly marked him, and made his character interesting.

One thing I’m not quite fond of is how Richelle Mead tends to sag in some parts, like when Sidney was trying her uniform, eating, eating, eating, studying, and all.
If only something-even something small that played a part in the story-happened during those event, it would be way much better.

Overall, this book is truly for you who love-definitely vampire-urban fantasy, great world building, and totally sweet romance. If you like Richelle Mead’s previous work, Vampire Academy, you would totally love this. Really recommended. ( )

4.5 stars
Very interesting to learn more about alchemists, and I always liked Sydney, even if she's a little more 'tight' than other characters in Vampire Academy. She really grew in this book, though, and finally learned to stand up for herself.

It was also refreshing to see Adrian grow, and want to be more than 'oh, but he's Adrian'... I am sure the next book will show more new things about him, though it does seem that he will have his work cut out for him!

Eddie was great, though a little too self-sacrificing.

Jill was still Jill. Young and naive, wanting to have some fun and most of all fit in! Like all young people her age.

I was a little disappointed, though, because Ms. Mead had said that Dimitri would be in this book... There was some talk about him, but he only actually showed up in the very last line of the book.

All in all a very satisfying book, I look forward to more - this world is one I really, really like! ( )

Spinoff from the Vampire Academy series. In short, the Vampire Academy never floated my boat, but I had hopes that this series would prove more interesting. I was sadly disappointed. The characters (all of them!) drove me crazy and I wanted to head-slap a majority of them. Perhaps I have too high of standards as and adult reading teen novels - especially teen vampire novels. A teen girl would probably really enjoy this and I could see it easily becoming the next CW series.

Still, I will try the next in the series to see if it improves. ( )

Predictable? Yeah, of course, it's Richelle Mead. Yet Without a doubt entertaining. Her characters make the novel worth sticking out the oh-so obvious story. ( )

The Vampire Academy series is one of my favorite paranormal romance series. I recommend it over a certain other one that I won't name here, that would be rude. So when I heard about this forthcoming title a few months back I immediately made plans to read it. Some of my fervor was immediately lost within a few chapters I was completely disinterested in the story and I felt like I had predicted everything. This made it quite difficult to keep reading, and subsequently this book took a really long time to finish.

The Alchemists are a group of religious scientists who handle vampire affairs in an effort to minimize human vampire exposure. The result is a mixture of wary to complete vampire hatred, but they have an important role in this world. Sydney who some will remember from Vampire Academy is an alchemist who was recently in some hot water because her vampire relations are teetering closer to friendship than hatred in the eyes of her superiors. The reality is she does not like being near the vampires but she has a healthy respect for her role in the alchemist community and believes that in order to fulfill that role she has to create a working relationship. So this story takes place from Sydney's point of view and we start to see the reality of an alchemists life, which actually sounds pretty strict and unyielding. The story is interesting, but made less so by readers of her other series since the plot was extremely predictable for anyone with a general knowledge of the previous series. In the end all of my initial predictions were right. The story picks up some toward the end but forcing myself to stick with it up to that point was almost exhausting. I hope that the next offering from this author will bring back more of what I liked about the first series, the action, intrigue and perhaps a little more emotion from the main character. Not giving up hope yet but, probably not going to jump to read the next. ( )