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Vampire Academy Series – Richelle Mead Vampire Academy Last Sacrifice Book 6 Review

Lin — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:13:01 +0000

With Last Sacrifice being the last (official) book of Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy Series (book 6), a lot of questions get answered, but leave it to Richelle to end the book with more questions being asked. What a great way of keeping the Vampire Academy story alive!

Despite this book completing the Vampire Academy series, Richelle is currently working on a spin-off series of these books entitled Bloodlines, which focuses more on the side character’s stories than Rose, Lissa and Dimitri.

Last Sacrifice picks up right where Spirit Bound (book 5) leaves us- with Rose locked up because of her being accused of murder. When Rose’s lawyer (who also happens to be her father) Abe, comes to deliver some bad news, Rose’s trial gets bumped up from her possibly being convicted in a couple months, to being two weeks away!

Vampire Academy Series “Last Sacrifice” Book 6 by Richelle Mead

With all of Rose’s closest friends working as fast as they can to help uncover the truth, Rose needs to make sure that the task assigned to her, by the now dead queen – Tatiana, is a legitimate request. After conjuring up Tatiana’s ghost and verifying the note, which was passed to Rose through Ambrose, Rose returned to Lissa’s mind to see what was happening in the world outside her holding cell.

With Queen Tatiana’s funeral arrangements having already been made, Lissa decided she would take part in the funeral taking her family’s position walking alongside the casket, along with a member of the other 11 royal families. When Rose finally fell asleep, she was abruptly awoken when she realized she couldn’t feel/sense the bond that allowed her to slip into Lissa’s head.

When morning finally came, Rose felt the bond connection had returned and she had full access to Lissa’s thoughts and feelings; it was also time for everyone to get into place for the funeral of Queen Tatiana. As the funeral began, Rose noticed that Lissa had been hiding thoughts and feelings from the bond, as nervousness fell through the cracks and Rose noticed that something wasn’t quite 100% with Lissa. Nothing was making any sense to Rose as Lissa walked alongside Tatiana’s coffin, and they were arriving at the cathedral. You can imagine everyone’s surprise when the statues that were in front of the cathedral had exploded-literally!

With all the confusion taking place at the cathedral, Rose herself was in shock when she saw Eddie, Mikhail, Adrian and Dimitri all in front of her, breaking her out. When Abe strategically exploded a wall to create an exit for Rose and Dimitri to escape the Royal Court as easily as possible, it was time for Rose to get to the bottom of Tatiana’s secret note.

Of course, it’s easier said than done when it comes to Rose; instead of staying in a hotel with alchemist-friend Sydney and Dimitri in West Virginia (like Abe told them to), Rose made a change of everyone’s plans and set out to find Lissa’s mysterious half-sibling. As Sydney starts digging around Lissa’s father’s (Eric) bank information, they find that he had been giving money to a mysterious Jane Doe.

With Sydney trying to figure out who this person is, Rose gets a surprise dream-walk visit from Viktor Dashkov and his brother Robert. When Rose relays theinformation to them about finding Lissa’s half-sibling, Viktor knows they need more time. He comes up with a plan to bide Rose more time, by telling Rose that Lissa needs to take part in the process of becoming the new queen.

After Viktor and Robert leave Rose’s dreams, she gets a new guest-her boyfriend Adrian who dream-walks to talk to Rose as well. Since Rose isn’t at court to make the plans happen with Lissa, Rose tells Adrian what needs to happen to get Rose more time finding Lissa’s half-sibling, and clearing her name from Tatiana’s murder. While the Queen and King nominations take place, and Lissa gets nominated (and accepts) for queen, she must take part in 3 tests. Each test is designed to determine the best candidates for King/Queen- eliminating those who can’t handle what it takes to do such a difficult thing.

While those tests take place, Sydney discovers that Eric Dragomir had been sending money to none other than Sonya Karp-a Strigoi who was one of Rose’s old teachers before she took off with Lissa. Once Rose, Dimitri and Sydney got the information they needed to locate Sonya, Viktor and Robert arrived to help capture her, and used a spirit-induced stake to return Sonya to her Moroi self. Despite her confusion, and hurt over the things that transpired, Rose needed to continue with locating Lissa’s half-sibling, and had to (basically) interrogate Sonya to find out what information she knew.

Although Sonya wouldn’t quite tell Rose everything, she did hop in the car with them and show her where she needed to be to find Lissa’s half-sibling. The news to the Mastrano family was a shock, since Mrs. Emily Mastrano had to make a confession. When it was finally decided that Lissa’s half-sister would go to the Royal Court and announce her heritage to everyone, things didn’t end up very well, since Guardians had been called, and Viktor left with Lissa’s half-sister Jill.

It wasn’t hard to find Viktor with Sonya continuously dream-walking to locate where the brothers and Jill were at. In a short amount of time Dimitri, Rose, Sydney and Sonya had all gone to Viktor’s hotel to ambush him and Robert to get Jill away from them. Things hadn’t quite gone as planned, when Viktor kept pushing Rose’s buttons, and Viktor ended up on the floor lifeless. With Viktor’s sudden death invading Rose’s thoughts, it takes a spirit-charmed locket to keep Rose sane. Luckily, they were able to get Jill away and started heading back to the Royal Court, while Rose started piecing together who REALLY murdered the Queen.

With Rose seeing that Lissa had passed the 3rd and final test, Rose needed to go see Sydney and the other Alchemists which were being held at court (Sydney got captured by the Guardians who raided the Mastrano house). Rose assuming she had all the information she needed, all evidence pointed to Daniella Ivashkov, Adrian’s mother, being the Queen’s killer. The information Rose received from the Alchemists wasn’t what she had expected at all.

The description of the last person seen in Queen Tatiana’s room the night she was murdered wasn’t Daniella Ivashkov at all! Rose knew who it was, and all though she didn’t quite know the reasoning for being framed by this person, she headed over to where the Council was to announce Lissa had a sibling (which would allow Lissa to rule as Queen), and to announce who Tatiana’s killer really, truly, was…

Richelle Mead didn’t fail to bring more suspense and action to Last Sacrifice, her final book of the Vampire Academy Series. Tatiana’s killer definitely wasn’t who I thought it was going to be, but the reasoning for it makes sense. After finally being told who framed Rose, Richelle did a nice flashback kind of thing to remind everyone of what happened in a previous book, to explain the reasoning for the murder.

Vampire Academy Book Series 1-6 by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy Book 1 – Vampire Academy Review
Vampire Academy Book 2 Frostbite – Frostbite Review
Vampire Academy Book 3 Shadow Kiss – Shadow Kiss Review
Vampire Academy Book 4 Blood Promise – Blood Promise Review
Vampire Academy Book 5 Spirit Bound – Spirit Bound Review
Vampire Academy Book 6 Last Sacrifice

Although I’m saddened that the Vampire Academy series of books is officially done, I’m quite excited to read the Bloodlines spin-off book series (release date August 23, 2011) to see what happens to the other characters, and to see how some unanswered questions finally get settled. If you’ve procrastinated on buying all of the Vampire Academy books in the series, then wait no more and buy the Vampire Academy box set of books 1-4 to get started, and you won’t be disappointed in Richelle Mead’s spectacular series of books.

The rights to make the Vampire Academy series into movies has already been sold! Be sure to follow the “Official Vampire Academy Movie” on Facebook to be kept up-to-date on decisions about the movie(s), as well as being able to put in your opinion on what should/shouldn’t be done with the movies to preserve the books we all love so much!

Guest post review written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Vampire Academy fans, Hush, Hush and Twilight book fans.

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Vampire Academy Series- Richelle Mead Vampire Academy Spirit Bound Book 5 Review

Lin — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:43:50 +0000

Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series book 5 Spirit Bound starts a few weeks after book 4 Blood Promise ends. With Rose thinking that she had succeeded in killing Dimitri, she was quite shocked when, after re-enrolling herself back in St. Vladimir’s, she was getting weekly letters from Dimitri. Rose had to put those thoughts of Dimitri, coming to hunt and kill her, away because now it was time for her final exam-the exam that would allow her to graduate to a full Guardian!

Success came quickly for Rose, despite the Guardians needing to craft a special exam specifically for Rose, given she already had real field experience. After everyone had finished their tests, it was time to get the “Promised Guardian” symbol tattooed on their backs, to show they were full Guardians. The graduation ceremony came and went, and once everyone was finished they all headed over to the Royal Court to have the new Guardians be picked by the Royal Moroi who graduated school as well and now needed their own Guardians. Rose, of course, had her own plans-to break Viktor Dashkov out of Tarasov Prison to locate his brother Robert, who was another spirit user, who had the Spirit power to restore Strigoi to their old Moroi/Dhampir selves!

Vampire Academy Spirit Bound Book 5 by Richelle Mead

Despite Lissa not quite liking/approving of Rose’s plan, she didn’t want to lose Rose again, and decided to accompany Rose and help her break Viktor out of prison. With the help of Guardian Mikhail, and the girls’ friend Eddy, they had succeeded in breaking Viktor out of prison. Their only problem now is making Viktor tell Rose and Lissa where his brother, Robert Duru, is. Once he decides, Viktor tells them they need to head to Las Vegas to see Robert. Spotting Robert in the Casino, he had arranged to meet everyone in, wasn’t difficult since Lissa was able to pick up his Spirit magic. The meeting didn’t quite go as planned since Dimitri had arrived to finally act on his threats to kill Rose.

Not killing Dimitri was a difficult task for Rose, since she was risking everything to try to save him. The consequences back at Court, for taking off, weren’t what Rose was expecting; she isn’t in school anymore and her actions have very real consequences. With Rose being on punishment and not allowed to go anywhere, Lissa has full opportunity to learn how to wield a stake and therefore being able to return Dimitri to his Dhampir self!

Things of course don’t go quite as planned. Lissa is off with Christian and Lissa’s new guardians, Serena and Grant, checking out Lissa’s college. After dinner, things became a blur since Lissa and Christian were being flanked by numerous Strigoi; one of whom was Dimitri. As a way of baiting Rose to him, Dimitri kept Lissa and Christian alive knowing that once Lissa is in danger, Rose will head straight for her. Rose did exactly that; headed straight for Lissa with a group of Guardians, with 2 missions in mind: rescuing Lissa and Christian, and killing Dimitri.

Once Rose and Dimitri finally came face-to-face, they danced back and forth, battling, waiting for the other to slip up so they could have their opportunity to strike. Rose’s opportunity came-and went because she had been shoved aside by Lissa and Christian. Lissa was hell-bent on saving Dimitri, so she had her Spirit-infused stake pierce Dimitri’s heart, while Christian formed a fire-circle- keeping everyone away from them and Dimitri while Lissa works her magic. Using all the strength she had, a bright light had shone once the stake had reached Dimitri’s heart. The impossible now became VERY possible with Lissa’s success!

Word spread quickly of what had transpired with Lissa and Dimitri, although everyone no one really believed what they heard/saw. Despite protests by both Rose and Lissa, that Dimitri was no longer Strigoi, he was being held in a cell at the Royal court. Everyone needed to be 100% certain he wouldn’t go off on a tangent and start killing again, so they ran numerous tests on him which seemed to be endless!

Although Rose assumed that once Dimitri was returned to being a Dhampir that he would want to see her, she was last person on Earth he wanted to see because of guilt and shame of all the horrible things he had done to her while being Strigoi. Rose started developing a small resentment towards Lissa, for being the only one allowed to see Dimitri, and for being the only one he asked and wanted to see at all. As a way of making herself feel better, she ran to Adrian for comfort.

When Dimitri was finally released, despite being heavily watched, Rose finally sought her opportunity to make Dimitri see that he was still in love with her. Things didn’t quite happen that way, as Rose departed from Dimitri as saddened and depressed as ever. As days went by and Rose and Dimitri were starting to talk a little more, and Rose was (kind of) content with being just friends with Dimitri, Dimitri’s love for Rose never left as a horde of Guardians approached Rose looking ready for a fight, and ready to attack. Out of pure instinct, Dimitri leapt in front of Rose and started battling with the oncoming Guardians, putting injury on his reputation that he was a fully restored Dhampir, once again.

The assault by the Guardians didn’t come from nothing, of course. As Rose was arrested and was being charged with treason, it wasn’t until she was face-to-face with her father Abe that word had reached Rose that Queen Tatiana had been brutally murdered, and Rose’s stake (which had gone missing) was in the room with Queen Tatiana’s body, covered in her blood. Who could/would have framed Rose for killing Queen Tatiana, and why?

Fingers are being pointed in several directions, but there’s only one way to find out who the murderer is, and why they framed Rose for it: you have to read the last and final book (book 6) of the Vampire Academy Series, Last Sacrifice, to find out!

Guest post review written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Vampire Academy fans, Hush, Hush and Twilight book fans.

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Vampire Academy Series Book 4 Blood Promise by Richelle Mead Review

Lin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:00:15 +0000

You know you have a really great book series when instead of writing about its greatness you spend your time rereading the book! Apparently that’s what’s been happening to me while I try writing about these Vampire Academy books. So let’s keep going and see what’s going on in book four: Blood Promise!

As Blood Promise starts out, Rose is at a nightclub in Russia. No she’s not trying to pick up guys; she’s trying to find someone who knows how to get to Dimitri’s home town. As Rose leaves the nightclub, she realizes she’s being followed. After a quick flashback of the past three weeks, Rose meets her stalker: Sydney.

As a Strigoi comes to attack Rose and Sydney, both girls realize they have a lot of talking to do. Sydney is an alchemist. Alchemy gets passed down though families and helps hide the secrets of moroi, dhampir, and Strigoi. Since Sydney has connections all over the place, Rose asks for Sydney’s help in finding Omsk: the place that will lead to Dimitri’s home town. When Sydney makes a call, she tells Rose that her superiors have instructed Sydney to take Rose to Omsk.

Back at the Academy, Lissa is being introduced to Eugene Lazar, his daughter Avery and his son Reed. Shock spreads through Lissa and Christian when Kirova announces that Eugene will be the academy’s new headmaster. Lissa’s spirit use is getting better, but she’s still angry that she can’t walk dreams yet. Although everyone misses Rose deeply, Avery tries to befriend Lissa, Christian and Adrian.

Back with Rose, she and Sydney found somewhere to rest overnight before completing their journey to Omsk. Despite this nice rest-stop, Rose gets woken up by her nausea-feeling and goes outside to see where the Strigoi are coming from. The two Strigoi managed to surprise Rose, and while she suddenly becomes overwhelmed by stress and other things, the spirits “free” themselves from Rose, and go attacking the Strigoi.

While they are being distracted, it gives Rose the upper hand at killing them both. Although the fight didn’t seem to last long, the effects of using the ghosts exhausted Rose, causing her to collapse right after Sydney comes outside. Once Rose woke up, she found that she was in the care of Olena Belikova: Dimitri’s own mother.

As Rose comes to realize that Dimitri’s family hadn’t been told about what happened to him, Rose had to let them know that he’d been turned Strigoi. Since his family only believes in life and death, (and Dimitri is in-between) they start making funeral arrangements for him. When it came time to share stories between everyone on what they remembered about Dimitri, Rose had a difficult time not crying.

Back at the Academy, Lissa is having a hard time. Avery is getting Lissa intoxicated, and is pulling fire alarms to get Lissa out of class. Avery is also making a terrible nuisance of herself since she is making it completely obvious that she wants Adrian Ivashkov. And not just his attention either…

When Rose wakes up, Dimitri’s grandmother Yeva needs help carrying garden bricks to a friend. When they arrive, Rose understands (without being told) that their hosts: Oksana and her husband Mark are bonded, just like Rose and Lissa. The cooler part was realizing that Oksana’s spirit tricks are totally different than what Adrian and Lissa can do! As the next few days pass, Rose starts to realize that living with Dimitri’s family isn’t going to work.

To see if Rose still has a place among her old Academy friends, she decided to check on Lissa. It seems that while Rose has been away, Lissa has started getting reckless; she’s doing things she wouldn’t typically do. As the night finishes off, Rose finds herself leaving to Novosibirsk with some young renegade guardians. And now the fun starts because its time to finally search for Dimitri!

Finding Dimitri proves to be a difficult task, so they go to plan B: finding Strigoi and asking for information about Dimitri. After only a little waiting, Rose’s wish came true. But hesitation got the best out of her as she finds herself being held hostage by non-other-than Dimitri Belikov.

So as not to TOTALLY give away the rest of the book, that’s all I’m going to report. Although the trips into Lissa’s mind don’t seem all that important right now, Avery actually plays a huge role in how Blood Promise ends. It explains Lissa’s reckless behavior, and Lissa and Adrian learn of another spirit user who can control a lot of power all at once.

But don’t worry guys! Even though I’ve written a lot so far, technically I’ve only written about HALF of this amazing book! The whole other half focuses on Rose’s captivity with Dimitri: whether or not she escapes. Also what winds up happening with Lissa because of Avery and whether or not Lissa can be saved? It gets really intense! As I said in the very beginning, this book is so incredible that I would rather reread the book than write about it!

Rose gets a chance to live her own live, instead of doing what’s being dictated to her by the academy. Rose finally gets to follow her heart and do what she feels is right. Rose gets to explore and decide for herself ultimately, if being a guardian is really what she wants for herself and her life.

Lissa gets to be more reckless and run than always be so reserved and so serious. She gets a chance to be a 17 year old girl (because she really is) instead of feeling like she has to be 40. Richelle shows more individualism in the characters in this round. If Rose weren’t bonded to Lissa, I think this is how they would’ve turned out. The relationships between the characters change somewhat, but just enough to throw a monkey-wrench into the story.

Rose is still in love with Dimitri, but can she kill him to save his life? Lissa is in love with Christian, so why would she risk it for another guy? Adrian has serious feelings for Rose and wants a REAL shot with her if she comes back, so why is he getting flirty-friendly with Avery? And could Abe Mazur possibly be Rose’s long lost father? This book is so intricately written that once you think you know what’s going to happen, a monkey-wrench gets tossed into the story, and you’re like, “WHAT?!”; its crazy.

Richelle Mead’s Fifth Vampire Academy book: Spirit Bound comes out May 18th. The Series comes to its ultimate close with the book titled: Last Sacrifice that will come out December 14th of this year. So keep an eye out for both of these books! You will definitely enjoy reading Blood Promise and all of the other books included in the Vampire Academy series!

Guest post review written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Vampire Academy fans, Hush, Hush and Twilight book fans.

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Vampire Academy Series Book 3 Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead Review

Lin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:00:30 +0000

Three weeks have gone by since the storyline in the Vampire Academy series book 2 Frostbite ended.Â In Richelle Mead’s VA book 3 in the series entitledÂ Â Shadow Kiss, people are still feeling the pain of Mason’s death, they’re still trying to get readjusted to their lives beforehand. How is Rose doing? Well… up until she started seeing Mason’s ghost, things were good, I guess.

When Rose and her guardian classmates get their assignments for their field exam, Rose is absolutely thrilled when she finds out she’ll be guarding Christian Ozera (instead of Lissa) for the remainder of the year. When the tests begin throughout the school, the only action Rose got was standing by Christian and Lissa while the other guardians-in-training “fought”.

When the test finally came to Rose head-on, things didn’t exactly happen the way they should have. When school guardian Stan Alto came to “attack” Christian, Rose froze. Of course it wasn’t because she was afraid of Stan, it was because she staring at the ghost of her dead friend – Mason.

Because Rose showed no attempt to protect Christian even the slightest bit, Rose stood in front of the school guardians, facing a removal of the field experience. Since Dimitri was there to defend Rose’s actions, Rose only had to do community service on her one day off.

When it’s time for Viktor Dashkov’s trial against his torturing Lissa, Rose was positive that Dimitri had got Rose and Lissa access to the trial. Despite that Viktor makes a statement accusing Dimitri and Rose of… doing adult things, a small uproar occurs in the courtroom over it, and ultimately he was sentenced to prison.

When Queen Tatiana makes it very clear that the “relationship” Rose has going on with Adrian must stop, Tatiana reveals that she is going to have Lissa marry Adrian. Regardless of Tatiana’s wild dreams, Rose is determined to keep Lissa happy with Christian. Although the flight home was delayed, Lissa thought it a treat for Rose to be pampered by Tatiana’s VERY personal assistant – Ambrose.

On the flight home, Rose gets one serious migraine headache. This is no ordinary headache since Rose starts seeing Mason’s ghost again, along with the ghosts of Lissa’s deceased family and a ton of other dead people. Since they couldn’t land right away, the plane had to land somewhere else; and that’s when Rose’s head felt like it exploded, and caused Rose to pass out. This time, Rose had no choice but to fess up what really happened.

After Dr. Olendski was convinced to put Rose in counseling and allow her to do halftime for the field experience, it was time for Rose to show everyone what she was really capable of doing. Although Rose was getting seriously impatient, her time to shine arose on a Sunday when she got “attacked” by Guardians Jean, Yuri, and her mentor Dimitri. Not only did Rose take out Jean and Yuri, but because of an intoxicated classmate, Rose had no choice but to take out Dimitri as well.

Right after Rose’s moments of glory, she had to save Christian from fighting Adrian, and then save Lissa, who was getting tortured by Ralf and Jesse. Though Lissa’s anger broke though her control, Lissa caused Jesse to hallucinate by using her compulsion to make Jesse see spiders crawling all over his body. As Rose’s only way of getting Lissa to stop using her compulsion against Jesse, Rose “took” Lissa’s anger and put it in herself.

While it seemed like a good idea at the time, Rose was now filled with an uncontrollable anger and rage, that it took Dimitri quite some time to get Rose to snap out of it (while also using adult-like romantic means…) When it was time to go back to the school, Rose’s moments of sheer bliss were shattered, when Rose came to a sudden halt and asked Dimitri if he sees Mason, cause Rose sure as hell does!

After the next few moments of awkwardness happen between Rose and Mason’s ghost, Rose and Dimitri realize the school is suddenly being overrun by a huge pack of Strigoi. When Rose realized that no one knew where Christian was, Rose took off to find him. Not only did Rose find Christian alive, but the two of them went to help the other guardians kill the remaining Strigoi on campus.

After Rose was told that a number of Moroi and Dhampirs had been kidnapped by some of the escaped Strigoi, she insisted that a search-and-rescue mission gets launched. Although a number of people objected to it, they eventually came around to the idea. With Mason’s help, Rose was able to tell where the Strigoi were hiding. Retrieving the lost people wasn’t the most difficult part, but things for the guardians went terribly wrong when Rose saw Dimitri being taken by the Strigoi and being turned against his will.

While another mission was sent to retrieve anyone else, the guardians came back without Dimitri’s body, sending Rose into a deeper state of depression. With Rose grieving over Dimitri’s lost soul, she decided to withdraw from St. Vladimir’s to hunt for and kill Dimitri; all just to keep a promise they made to each other a long time ago…

Guest post review written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Vampire Academy fans, Hush, Hush and Twilight book fans.

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Vampire Academy Frostbite Book 2 by Richelle Mead Review

Lin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:02:03 +0000

Welcome to the Vampire Academy book 2Â in the VA seriesÂ entitled Frostbite, by author Richelle Mead! Vampire Academy is a school where Dhampirs train to become guardians and moroi learn to wield magic. Right away things jump to a start with Rose Hathaway being taken off campus to take a test for her pre-field exam. This test will determine whether or not Rose will continue to train as a guardian or not.

Only problem, the legendary Arthur Schoenburg was supposed to administer test and now he and his moroi charges were massacred in their own home. Things only get worse when Dimitri issues a “replacement” test and it is discovered that humans are now helping Strigoi murder moroi royal families.

As a precaution, Headmistress Kirova issues a mandatory ski trip for all the students and staff. Before the trip, the school needed to stock up on more guardians. Thus, introducing Janine Hathaway, who happens to be Rose Hathaway’s very own mother. Janine has a very high guardian reputation and just so happens to be a guest speaker in one of Rose’s classes. After Rose gets thrown out of class and Janine has a brief discussion with Rose, you can tell their relationship isn’t the greatest.

After a training session with Dimitri, he feels Rose needs a lesson of another kind and takes Rose to meet Tasha Ozera: Christian Ozera’s aunt. After conversations were shared, Rose and Dimitri say their goodbyes, until the next day. Since Dimitri did Tasha a favor, he needed a fill-in for training with Rose. Who better to do the job than her own mother Janine!

When the training session goes awry, Rose ends up in the nurse’s office for possible concussion, and a black eye. During Christmas, Janine told Rose that an offer was put on the table for Dimitri to become Tasha’s guardian; among other things. Lucky for Rose it was time for the ski trip, and the perfect thing to make Rose forget all about Dimitri possibly becoming Tasha’s guardian.

Once Rose and her friend Mason get their skiis on, it was time to play “dare-devil” and see whose stunts could outdo the other, After Mason got badly injured from a fall, Rose went back to her dorm only to get interrupted by alcoholic, cigarette-smoking Adrian Ivashkov. Although Rose isn’t very fond of the Ivashkov family, she does have a very interesting conversation with Adrian until it was time for bed.

All the fun is short-lived when this is a report of another odd Strigoi attack very close to the reserve. When it was uncovered that Rose’s “evil nemesis” Mia’s family was killed as well, things started to get really personal. While guardians were discussing tactics, moroi royals were discussing safety. When Tasha Ozera stood up to voice her opinion on a subject, many people didn’t agree with what she had to say. When asked what Tasha thought about what should be done about Strigoi, she simply waved her hand and set another royal’s clothes on fire.

Once the guardians got more information on the latest Strigoi attack, Rose thought it harmless to share the information with Mason; until she went to look for him later and find that he, Mia, and Mason’s friend Eddy took off to Spokane – a town where the Strigoi were sighted at. Luckily, within a matter of hours, Rose and Christian found the three runaways at the Spokane mall without incident. When everyone convinced Rose to check out the tunnels that had “supposedly” had been the Strigoi hideout, only Rose seems to realize that the guardian information was indeed accurate.

In a failed attempt to escape the tunnels, Rose, Christian, Mia, Eddy, and Mason rind themselves being taken hostage by a group of humans; only to be taken to the Strigoi who massacred both royal families. As days went by with no sign of escape, a starving Rose and bloodthirsty Christian conjured up a plan of escape using Christian’s fire magic. When everything looked like it was going according to plan, their Strigoi captors Isaiah and Elena came back to find Rose and her friends breaking free.

When Rose tells Mason to get everyone out, she distracts Isaiah and Elena long enough, only to find that after getting Christian, Mia and Eddy out, Mason came back to get Rose out. When Mason’s rescue attempt goes terribly wrong, Rose has no choice but to watch Isaiah snap Mason’s neck.

After Rose “loses her mind”, she not only beheads Elena, but Rose beheads Isaiah as well, with an old rusted sword; with a little help from Mia’s water magic. After Dimitri and all the school guardians come to rescue everyone, it seems like quite a challenge to get Rose away from Mason’s body. After all is said-and-done, the school has a “ceremony” for Rose for her “killings”. When the “ceremony” ends, Dimitri feels it important to talk to Rose about what happened in the tunnels with the Strigoi, and feels like he has a couple confessions to make… Confessions you’ll have to see when you read “Frostbite”.

You’ll have no problem understanding what’s going on in this book. Frostbite picks up where Vampire Academy ends. Rose and Lissa are still in their junior year, and while the characters themselves are the same, a lot about them changes.

Rose begins to take a lot after Dimitri: His need to stay in control of things, his understanding of his duty as a guardian, and his “no-games” kind of attitude. Although she still is a trouble-maker and a heart-breaker, Rose begins to understand the seriousness of what it takes to be a guardian.

Lissa is still Lissa, and is still struggling to understand her magic. But she starts to get help when she meets her “cousin” Adrian Ivashkov. Although there is nothing romantic happening between Adrian and Lissa, Christian can’t help but feel jealous when it comes to seeing Lissa with Adrian. What a typical guy!

When it comes time to fight and show whose boss, Richelle shows that even when tragedy strikes, Rose is still ready to fight and defend. Imagining how the fighting actually looks, was the most fun. I wonder if the way I imagine the fight scene to look, if it’s the way Richelle wanted it to look while she was writing it.

For those people who liked the romance and love between the characters, don’t worry. There is still plenty of kissing and flirting in Frostbite to make you all very happy. Just try not to say, “AWW!” at the very end of the book.Â J

Guest post review written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Vampire Academy fans, Hush, Hush and Twilight book fans.

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Vampire Academy Series by Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy Books 1-6

Lin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:00:22 +0000

Vampire Academy is an ongoing series of six vampire-based fantasy/romance novels by USA Today and New York Times best-selling author, Richelle Mead. The Vampire Academy series of books include titles such as Vampire Academy (Book 1-2007); Frostbite (Book 2-2008); Shadow Kiss (Book 3-2008); Blood Promise (Book 4-2009); Spirit Bound (Book 5-May, 2010) and Book 6 with a to-be-determined title scheduled for release in December 2010.

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school. It’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rosemarie “Rose” Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Vasilisa “Lissa” Dragomir, a Moroi Vampire Princess.

They’ve been on the run for two years following a horrible incident, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s, a large castle hidden in the deep forests of Montana, the very place where they’re most in danger. Rose and Lissa each become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi, the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires, make Lissa one of them forever.

Vampire Academy Books

Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy (book 1) introduces guardian-in-training Rose Hathaway, her training teacher Dimitri Belikov, her best friend Vasilisa Dragomir, and Lissa’s new boyfriend Christian Ozera. Rose is 17, a student at St. Vladimir, extremely opinionated, and very tough! Dimitri is in his mid-twenties, from a small town in Russia, the assigned guardian to Lissa, and a school-wide guardian at St. Vladimir’s.

Lissa is 17, a moroi, royal, the last in her bloodline, and is currently waiting to see what magic she’s specialized in. Christian is a moroi, 17, a fire-user, an only child, and a St. Vladimir social-reject. Dimitri is assigned to train Rose to prepare her for the Senior Year Field Exam. But as Rose’s training gets underway, Lissa starts to worry about things, and finds she’s falling for bad-boy Christian Ozera.

Although Christian can help keep Lissa mentally stable, it is Rose and Dimitri’s job to keep Lissa physically stable. So when Rose gets shot with fear after running 12 miles with Dimitri, she runs even more to see what has traumatized Lissa. After 30 minutes of having to calm Lissa down, Rose, Lissa and Dimitri stuff themselves inside Lissa’s room to reveal a fox with its throat cut open, lying on Lissa’s pillow. With Rose burning with anger, she wins her first fight in class and suspects a fellow student, Mia, of killing the fox.

When students start antagonizing Rose and Lissa about the fox, one of the taunters, Ralf Sarcozy, finds himself on fire in the middle of class. After all possible fire-users are considered, it’s discovered that it is lonely Christian who performed the offensive magic. As a way of trying to figure out what’s going on between Lissa and Christian behind closed doors, Rose meditates and is able to “get into” Lissa’s head.

Afterward, Rose has a little run-in with male-royal, Jesse. As a way of getting back at Mia for some issues, Rose starts telling rumors to Jesse about Mia’s family. Right when things start getting heated and intense between Rose and Jesse, Dimitri walks in and threatens Jesse about Rose. After an outburst from Rose, a training session the next day, and a few “romantic” moments between Dimitri and Rose, it was time to get ready for Queen Tatiana to visit the school.

Once the excitement dies down, and Rose has an almost-fight with Mia, Rose finds it difficult to sleep. When Rose goes to talk to Dimitri, they find Lissa in her bathroom with a butchered rabbit in the trash. After the hall matron gets worked up, they discover a note was left for Lissa, threatening her “identity”.

As classmates start up with their comments about Rose and Lissa again, Lissa has finally had enough and starts taking things into her own hands. After a few days go by with romance continuing between Rose and Dimitri, and a few other exciting and interesting things unfold, Rose finds out she’s going on a shopping trip! But when Lissa tries to pull out a pair of shoes to show Rose, not only are there shoes in the bag, but a dead dove as well.

After everything gets cleaned up, Rose discovers that this shopping trip actually serves another purpose: she’s to be Dimitri’s partner in guarding Lissa to help Rose prepare for the future. While Rose is shopping with Lissa, they come across a rose-shaped necklace that happens to be too expensive. Once everyone gets back to the school, Rose breaks her ankle on a rotted bench, and has to be rushed to the clinic.

Although Dimitri finds Lissa passed out from cut wounds on her wrists, Lissa decides she wants to be on her own for a little while. At a school dance, Rose’s friend Mason gets Ralf and Jesse to reveal how some sex rumors got started. Also, Rose has a run-in with Mia which ends in Mia screaming with a bloody face, and a broken nose. After Rose finds herself under a spell, from a necklace, Lissa gets abducted by Viktor and his Strigoi-turned niece, Natalie.

Vampire Academy Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy has an interesting relationship between the characters, in my opinion. Rose and Lissa are bonded, so Rose will always know how Lissa is feeling, and what she’s thinking. Good-girl Lissa falls for bad-boy Christian, proving that opposites attract. And teenage-rebel Rose develops feelings for older, self-controlled Dimitri Belikov.

I love that Rose has a mind of her own. She’s not falling, stupidly, in love with someone just because of what they are, like Bella does in Twilight. She’s a typical teenager having feelings of attraction for someone she knows she’s not supposed to. She’s not some prissy girl who’s scared of everything. She’s down to fight and will instigate it; even if it’s between animals and not “humans”. What I like about Lissa, is that even though she’s supposed to be the more self-controlled and reserved one between Lissa and Rose, she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty either!

These characters are so much more realistic and well-thought out than some books I’ve read. You have typical teenagers talking smack, girls trying to ruin each other’s reputations, jealousy over popularity, people spreading rumors, etc. Richelle Mead does a fabulous job of telling a story based on fantasy, but keeping it somewhat realistic too.

One thing that helps a lot is, since Rose is bonded to Lissa, Rose needs to literally see what Lissa sees. Richelle sets up the transition so well that you know when points of view are going to change between Rose and Lissa, then back again. There may be a couple confusing parts to when the point of view is changing from Lissa to Rose, but not many.

The only parts of the book that I was getting pretty confused about, was when Richelle does her flashbacks. Instead of using 15 chapters to tell a story and then continue it, Richelle just flashes back to an event that happened between Rose, Lissa, and a teacher; it’s the whole reason for the story, basically.

In one chapter, Rose is sitting in class, and something triggers a flashback. Somehow you go from Rose in a classroom, to 3 people freaking out in a random location. So I had to reread the page to figure out what was going on. But it’s definitely not like you’re totally lost and have no idea what’s going on. Sometimes you know you’re in a flashback, sometimes you get confused, but the confusion is definitely worth reading this book!

It is an INCREDIBLE book, and I’ve already recommended this one to the Co-Owner of the Hush, Hush fansite, Rebecca. It’s not the generic story of vampires and all that nonsense. Richelle keeps to some old parts, but adds some new, and some in-betweens. She keeps to the undead, vampire-staking and no sunlight: Strigoi, but adds the idea of “living” vampires, who wield magic, and who die like a human would: Moroi. She also brings back the idea of Dhampirs: half-vampire, half-human. Only, instead of the Dhampirs killing other vampires, they GUARD the Moroi from the Strigoi.

Vampire Academy is amazingly well-thought out, and I love this book so much I feel like I’m giving too much away! You won’t be disappointed with the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead like with some other Vampire books!

Guest post review written and submitted by Heather P. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Heather P and engage with her and fellow Vampire Academy fans, Hush, Hush and Twilight book fans.

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