Monday, May 23, 2011

Hearts at Stake by Alyxandra Harvey

In the Drake family, vampires are born, not made.  On each of the Drake children's 16th birthday, they undergo the blood change that turns them into a vampire.  Solange's 16th birthday is almost here, and with it comes a prophecy that she will unite all the vampire clans as their queen.  The problem is there's already a vampire queen, who's none too pleased about the prophecy.  As Solange's birthday comes closer, she and everyone she's close to is put in more and more danger.

So it had been a while since I read a vampire romance type book, and I felt like I could handle it.  This actually wasn't bad.  I kind of enjoyed it.  It was no thanks to Solange, however, who was fairly boring, but her best friend, a human named Lucy.  Lucy was kick-ass and funny. 


We of course had star-crossed romances going on.  There were actually TWO star-crossed romances.  The first was between Lucy and one of Solange's brothers.  Nicholas is of course a jerk to Lucy, and they've always made fun of and teased each other since childhood and don't even really like each other.  So of course they fall in love.  Sure.  Whatever.  The second was between Solange and Kieran, a human who belongs to the Helios-Ra organization that kills vampires.  Awkward. 

The book wasn't long and the pace was good, it didn't leave any time for me to get bored.  There were the usual - nice vampires that don't eat people, human-vampire romances, etc. but I liked that unlike a lot of the other vampire romances I've read, there were several strong women characters.  Solange was not one of them, and doesn't do a whole lot throughout the book except be sleepy and self-sacrificing.  As her blood change approaches, she gets more and more tired and is in constant need of care and protection.  Maybe in later books (this is a series) she'll be more of a character.  Solange's mother is a warrior, and Lucy had plenty of personality.  However, Lucy did comment on Nicholas' crooked smile a couple times, and I almost screamed.  What is the deal with the crooked smiles?

The end of the book however stopped making sense.  So Solange and her brothers are tricked into going and seeing the vampire queen, and on their way there they are attacked and learn that the queen was the one who put the bounty (there was a bounty) on Solange and there was a rouge unit of the Helios-Ra that was working with the queen.  So there's lots of fighting and running away, and Solange ends up with Keiran trying to get back her house.  On the way, she discovers her missing aunt (her aunt was missing) who is badly hurt.  So Solange decides the only reasonable thing to do is run away so as to protect her family....What?  Have you met your amazingly overprotected family?  The best way to keep people from getting hurt for you would be to GO HOME AND STAY IN YOUR ROOM until you're a vampire and more able to take care of yourself.  Not run off leaving everyone wondering where you are and making everyone look for you.  So that was weird.

But aside from that it was pretty enjoyable.  I don't feel the need to read any more of the series, but as vampire romances go, it was a fun read.

1 comment:

  1. I love this review. I read this book a couple weeks ago and thought it was enjoyable enough, but nothing spectacular.

    I was rolling my eyes alot throughout this one at some of the things they did. I think your final paragraph pretty much sums that up.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...