The Coldest Girl in Coldtown - Holly Black

Tana wakes up in a bathtub after a night of partying only to find almost everyone massacred in the house.  Besides her the only other people "alive" are her ex-boyfriend Aidan, who is tied to a bed and infected, along with a vampire named Gavriel in chains next to the bed.  As they escape the house with a group of vampires after them, Tana is bitten on her leg.  She fears that she's infected and will turn into a vampire.  They stop at a gas station an hour away from the party massacre to decide what they want to do.  The best thing for everyone is to head to the Coldtown in Springfield, Massachusetts.  The Coldtowns were set up to contain the vampires and people who are infected and may or may not turn into vampires.  At a rest stop outside of Coldtown they encounter Midnight and Winter, a brother and sister who want to become vampires.  Midnight and Winter run a blog about vampires.  Midnight wants to interview Aidan since they've never encountered someone going through the transition into a vampire.  When he attacks her during the interview Tana decides it is time to get going to Coldtown.  As they approach the checkpoint before Coldtown, Gavriel is put into chains to make it look like he is their captive.  Tana fills out the paperwork to get the bounty and a marker for herself so she can leave Coldtown.  All of them enter Coldtown and are put into cages.  They escape and head to a house where Midnight has a contact.  His contact locks Aidan and Tana in a room together where Aidan's hunger for blood is to much for him to control.  He attacks Tana and she escapes.  She encounters Jameson who tells her who Gavriel really is and his connection to Lucien, the most famous vampire in the Springfield Coldtown.  Tana begins to question if bringing Gavriel back to Coldtown was the right thing to do. 

After not reading a vampire book for a while this was the perfect one for me to pick up and read.   It was a well told story with the right mix of a dangerous and serious situation Tana is in, along with some comic relief.  I like the way it ended too.  It was left open for a possibility of a sequel, and for the reader to imagine what might happen.  The book had the feel of episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which made the book even more enjoyable for me to read. 

T.B. 9/23/13

Burned - P.C. and Kristin Cast

Spoiler Alert: Events that happened at the end of book six Tempted will be talked about. So if you don't want to be spoiled don't read any further.

At the end of Tempted Zoe watched Kalona kill Heath, and after attacking Kalona with the spirit element Zoe's soul has shattered. Her body remains in the living world, but the pieces of her soul are trapped in Nxy's Otherworld. In the living world Stark, Darius, Damien, the Twins, Jack, and Aphrodite along with Zoe's body go to the Vampire Council in Venice to see what can be done to save Zoe. Once they find out that Zoe's soul has been shattered, Stark in his capacity as Warrior vows to head to the Otherworld, and make sure Zoe's soul gets back to her body. It's determined that Stark needs to go to the Isle of Women to get Zoe back into her body. In Tulsa Stevie Rae called Darkness this world, symbolized by the bull, and the bull tells her how Stark is to enter the Isle of Women. She also has to keep the fact that the raven mocker Rephaim is alive, and she is protecting him from the other red fledglings. Stevie Rae also has to deal with rogue red fledglings which are causing havoc in Tulsa. Zoe on the other hand doesn't want to leave Heath all alone in the Otherworld, and is weakening because she can't pull the pieces of her soul together. Can Stark gain entry to the Isle of Women to save Zoe? Will Stevie Rae's secret about Rephaim come out? Can Zoe pull her self together and return to the living world? Well I'm not going to spoil the book. You will just have to read Burned to find out the answers.

The next book in the House of Night series is called Awakened. As of this writing no publication date has been announced.
T.B. 5/3/10

Strange Angels - Lili St. Crow

Dru and her dad have moved around quite a bit. The reason for this is that her dad hunts monsters (zombie, vampire, and various otherworldlies). Dru also has this ability where she can sense danger coming. One day her dad leaves on a mission, and after a few days he comes back, but he's a zombie. She kills him and then goes on the run. Dru hides out in the mall with her friend Graves. They come under attack by werewulfs and Graves is bitten by one. Dru decides to head back to the house to try and figure out what is behind her dad being turned into a zombie and the attack on her and Graves. As she's going through her dad's things she finds a phone number of someone who might have answers. She calls and meets him, and it turns out the guy is a djamphir, a half-human, half-vampire. She also finds her dad's wallet and locket along with his truck. Christophe comes to the house and tells her she's in danger from the thing her dad was hunting and she needs to leave immediately.

This was a good opening book to this series. I liked how Lili St. Crow lays out the groundwork and the characters for the series. As I was reading this book, I kept seeing similarities to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which is probably why I enjoyed it. The character of Dru is similar to the character of Buffy. They are both strong and independent and know what they have to do in any situation, even if it means sacrificing someone they love for the greater good. I'm looking forward to reading the next book, which is called Betrayals, and out in bookstores now.

T.B. 1/7/10