Genre: Paranormal (Urban Fantasy) YA
When the Mayflower set sail in 1620, it carried on board the men and women who would shape America: Miles Standish; John Alden; Constance Hopkins. But some among the Pilgrims were not pure of heart; they were not escaping religious persecution. Indeed, they were not even human. They were vampires.The vampires assimilated quickly into the New World. Rising to levels of enormous power, wealth, and influence, they were the celebrated blue bloods of American society.
The Blue Bloods vowed that their immortal status would remain a closely guarded secret. And they kept that secret for centuries. But now, in New York City, the secret is seeping out. Schuyler Van Alen is a sophomore at a prestigious private school. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes instead of the Prada and pearls worn by her classmates, and she lives with her reclusive grandmother in a dilapated mansion. Schuyler is a loner...and happy that way. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arm. She starts to crave raw food and she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a popular girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn't know what to think, but she wants to find out the secrets the Blue Bloods are keeping. But is she herself in danger?
Could those vampire legends really be true? Steeped in vampire lore and set against the glittery backdrop of New York City, Blue Bloods will be devoured by Melissa de la Cruz's legion fans
Thoughts:
Blue Bloods is a book I have been putting off for years. All of the misleading reviews had put me on edge for this series. Especially the ones that state how bad the incest is. It didn’t help that the book description makes this sound like an average tale of the rich elite vampires of New York City.
What I found in the pages of Blue Bloods is a completely DIFFERENT TAKE ON VAMPIRES. Noticed all that capitalization did you? The Blue Bloods literally get blue blood when they hit a certain age, where their vampire natures come out. Fangs and a hunger for blood are not the only thing these adolescents get, memories of their past lives start to flash before them. Imagine being connected to a soul mate through each reincarnation. You might have married someone only to have them as your brother in the next life. It’s quite believable that these creatures—who can pull up memories of past lives—are the rich entitled; the power source of fashion, media, and anything big out there in the world. For more icing on the cake, the Blue Bloods are also connected to Angles, which I will let you discover all about.
Unlike other readers, I thought Blue Bloods plunges right in to the story. Reviews that claim it was boring until the end leave me wondering how it was boring. The author reveals the world of the Blue Bloods at a nice pace, and the action starts immediately. There is a lot of stuff that is crammed at the end of the book, but I found the rest of the book moving at a nice tempo.
The point of view jumps quite a bit, and a couple of times I wondered how many more characters were going to be introduced to take over the point of view. Even after getting a bit over whelmed by the constant change of view, each character’s take added to the world. There’s plenty of characters to fall in love with, plenty of fodder for future drama, and of course those beloved characters that we love to hate.
The writing style isn’t exactly the stuff of eloquence. It had a slight feel of the writing style from the House of Night books, nothing quite to the degree of that series thank goodness. Clearly the writing could do with some improvement, but there’s plenty of time for it to grow on readers.
Bottom Line: Blue Bloods is a completely DIFFERENT TAKE ON VAMPIRES. There’s room for improvement for the writing, but I can’t say a reader could be bored from the pacing of Blue Bloods. The drama starts up pretty much right at the beginning and only intensifies as the book continues. The cliffhanger ending might be a sour point for readers, but after a certain point readers should be used to them by now. For those who need to have love stories there are quite a few happening here. The main love story had me all riled up and one of the side love stories had me misty eyed at one point.
Sexual Content:
There is an almost sex scene that was pretty graphic for YA. It’s what I would expect to find in a mellow Adult Urban Fantasy read. Kissing, sex talk and jokes. (Not even going to bother addressing the incest, it’s clearly explained and I can’t fault it as truly being incest. In all honesty it wasn’t even the main focus of this read, more like a side note.)
4/5 Great! Really enjoyed it.
Add it:
Amazon: Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods, Book 1)
goodreads: Blue Bloods
2 comments:
I love the series also. ALthough I have to say the last book that came out kinda disappointed me so hopefully it'll pick back up again.
A lot of readers of the Blue Blood series have been saying the exact same thing. That the recent book was "light fluff." Or just a filler, but if this first book is any indicator I'll still push forward.
Post a Comment