Alyxandra Harvery – Bleeding Hearts

87. Bleeding Hearts by Alyxandra Harvey (2011)
The Drake Chronicles, Book 4

Read my review of book:
1. Hearts at Stake
2. Blood Feud
3. Out For Blood

Length: 304 pages
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Started: 06 August 2012
Finished: 07 August 2012

Where did it come from? The library.
Why do I have it? I was in the mood for a quick escapist read.

Vampire attacks
and kidnapping: a normal
night for the Drake boys.

Summary: The Drake family has called a Blood Moon – a gathering of all the vampire clans. Tensions are high as vampires gather, especially since there seem to be more of the feral, infectious Hel-Blar vampires prowling around than usual. Lucy Hamilton might only be human, but she’s got plenty of connections to vampire politics: she’s dating one of the Drake brothers, and their daughter, the princess Solange, is Lucy’s best friend. Or was her best friend – she’s been acting strange lately. Also on Lucy’s list of worries is her cousin Christabel, who has come to live in Violet Hill while her mom’s in rehab. Christabel doesn’t believe in vampires, preferring poetry and Jane Eyre to Buffy. But when she finds herself drawn into their world, after falling for Connor Drake, the fact that she doesn’t believe in vampires doesn’t mean that she’s not in danger from them.

Review: The Drake Chronicles are perfect literary candy, escapist read fun. They’ve got plenty of action, plenty of romance, cute vampires, and a sensibility that sets them apart from a lot of other teen paranormal romance. (Namely, I can read them without being filled with rage.) They’re also excellent for breaking me out of a reading rut, and Bleeding Hearts was no exception. I haven’t been reading a ton lately, and I’ve been super-distractible when I do, but I tore through Bleeding Hearts in little more than a day (and was late to work because I couldn’t bring myself to put it down. Whoops.)

So overall: Totally fun, enjoyable read. In specific: There were a few things that were not quite as awesome as they could have been. The primary issue was that the narration was split between Connor, Christabel, and Lucy. On the one hand, Lucy, hooray! She’s hilarious, and her POV narration was a large part of what sold me on the series back when I first read Hearts at Stake. On the other hand, however, the more time spent with Lucy and worrying about vampire politics means that the Connor/Christabel plot got relatively less space, and therefore wasn’t really developed as well as I would have liked. Connor’s great – probably the Drake brother I would personally go for were I magically transported into the books – so I was sad that not as much time was spent on the romance angle of the story. It also felt like things were a little rushed between them, and that clearly because we have two “nerds” in a story, they’re going to wind up together. Harvey can write a hot make-out scene like nobody’s business, but she can also write really good banter-y flirting, and I would have liked more of the latter than we get in this installment.

But even so, I had a blast with this book, and I’m definitely looking forward to getting my hands on the next one in the series. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Harvey does a quick but thorough job summarizing (which is nice for folks like me who read the rest of the series a while ago), but there are enough characters and enough going on that the series is probably better read from the beginning. I’d definitely recommend the whole thing to Buffy fans who are looking for a light, charming, funny summer read.

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First Line: “The fact that we have to fetch our baby sister home because she’s out later than we are is just sad,” Quinn grumbled.

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