Blood Promise: A Vampire Academy Novel by Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: August 25th, 2009
Hardback: 512 pages
Age Group: Young Adult
Other novels in this Series: Vampire Academy (#1), Frostbite (#2), Shadow Kissed (#3)
Guardian Rose Hathaway's life will never be the same.
The recent attack on St. Vladimir's Academy devastated the entire Moroi world. Many are dead. And, for the few victims carried off by Strigoi, their fates are even worse. A rare tattoo now adorns Rose's neck; a mark that says she's killed far too many Strigoi to count.
But only one victim matters.... Dimitri Belikov. Rose must now choose one of two very different paths: honoring her life's vow to protect Lissa–her best friend and the last surviving Dragomir princess–or, dropping out of the Academy to strike out on her own and hunt down the man she loves. She'll have to go to the ends of the earth to find Dimitri and keep the promise he begged her to make. But the question is, when the time comes, will he want to be saved?
Now, with everything at stake–and worlds away from St. Vladimir's and her unguarded, vulnerable, and newly rebellious best friend—can Rose find the strength to destroy Dimitri? Or, will she sacrifice herself for a change at eternal love?
Blood Promise was just... wow. I've been staring at it for the past half hour trying to figure out how to explain all the feelings I have for this book. To try and explain anything about this book. From the very beginning I have loved Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy novels. I've waited a little too impatiently for the next installment of the series after each time I've finished the last.
Richelle's writing and her descriptions are just utterly amazing and beautiful. I mean, yes, this book wasn't as good as the first three in some concepts because it is so different in many ways and has a different aura about it. But it is among my top favorite books.
I'm sorry if I'm not making much sense in this review, but I'm just completely shocked at all the things that happened through this book. I always feel as though I'm completely in with everything that's happening with the story and as though I am really Rose Hathaway. I get too caught up in what's happening and forget everything that's happening around me.
Rose's feelings for Dimitri and the unfair choices she has to make to either pick Dimitri–the man she's completely in love with– and Lissa–her best friend, are completely heart-wrenching.
The Pace in Blood Promise is perfect. Yes, I said perfect, and you see a side of Rose you hardly ever get to see. You get to know her a little bit more, along with some of the other characters. It starts shortly after the ending of Shadow Kiss (the last installment in the Vampire Academy series).
Though I loved this book, it kind of tormented me in a strange way. I've grown to love Dimitri just as Rose does. So reading this book was really hard for me. Yes, I admit, I shed some tears reading this book. A lot of them, and got a lot of strange looks for it as well.
Overall, this was a great book to read. Now I can't wait for the next installment! The next installment of the series is Spirit Bound, which is to be released on May 18th, 2010! (Which I read on Richelle's website.) I can't wait!
Cover: I know that you should never pick a book by it's cover, but sometimes the cover can tell a lot. I've always loved the covers for the Vampire Academy novels (I'm a huge cover sucker! Can't resist them.) and Bloose Promises cover wasn't disappointing at all, it was just as beautiful as the last three.
Recommendable? Duh! I highly recommend this book and the series! They are without a doubt my favorite vampire series, and on my top five favorite series.
Here is a bookmark I made for Blood Promise. It's not the best, but I love creating things like this. Thought I would put it up so it can be up for grabs to anyone who'd like it. All you have to do is click on the link under the image and it'll bring you to my photobucket. Save the image to your computer, make it however big as you want it and then print it out. Cutting along the line of the two images. Glue them together and laminate them. (I highly suggest laminating them, but if you don't have access to a machine for this, just glue them.
