Friday, May 3, 2013

From the Stacks: Bloodspell by Amalie Howard

This is a book I was able to read from NetGalley and was released in 2011, with the sequel expected sometime in 2014. Hopefully that happens because it seems like Amalie Howard will be quite busy the end of this year and next year, with four books being released. I guess she's making up for that two year gap where she published nothing.



Summary:

"The spell was simple...

Cruentus Protectum (Defend the Blood)

But what do you do if your blood is your enemy?

Victoria Warrick has always known she was different. An outcast at school, she is no stranger to adversity. But when she receives an old journal for her seventeenth birthday, nothing prepares her for the dark secrets it holds -- much less one that reveals she's a witch with unimaginable power.

What's more, when she meets the dazzling but enigmatic Christian Devereux, she has no idea how much her life is about to change. Enemies will hunt her. Friends will turn on her. The terrible curse that makes her blood run black will stop at nothing to control her. And Christian has a sinister secret of his own...

Without knowing whom to trust, can Victoria survive her blood's deadly desires? Or will she lose everything, including herself?"

My Thoughts:

Overall I decided to give this book a 4.5/5, because it was really good, but I did find some minor spelling and grammatical errors throughout. 

I saw some other reviews on Goodreads and such that tried to say that this was yet another book that was basically a Twilight re-write, but I disagree. Yes there is a mortal girl and a vampire boy involved in a romance. Whatever. That happens in so many books, and did for a great number of years before Twilight came out. 

But my main issue with people trying to compare this to that other book is that Victoria is--in my mind--a much stronger female character than Bella was in the whole series. When Christian tries to basically become controlling, telling her where she can go and what she can do, Victoria is quick to stand up for herself and tell him that he does not control her and cannot make her decisions for her. Granted, in that particular scenario where she lashed out at him, Christian was actually right, and Victoria's decision got her into trouble, but still...the point is that she is the one who made that decision and so she now can deal with the consequences of that.

Also, Victoria is far more active than Bella is. Looking at the whole saga, Bella spends most of the time sitting around thinking, or listening to people talk, and she is mostly a very passive person with only a few exceptions (punching Jacob, going to Italy to save Edward, and of course fighting against her enemies after she herself becomes a vampire), but Victoria doesn't just sit around and let stuff happen to her. She researches, and let's also not forget the fact that she is not a normal mortal...she is a witch, so how could people honestly try and compare her to Bella? If anything, I would think they would compare this more to the stories and romances in L.J. Smith's Night World series.

Anyway, this book really did intrigue me. I enjoyed the characters, even though it always bothers me when male characters try to control the females in whom they are romantically interested. I don't care if you are a several hundred year old vampire or if you are the alpha of your wolf pack or whatever...this is 2013 buddy and guess what? Females can take care of themselves. If she asks for help fine, or if she is honestly in way over her head then you can step in to help. Otherwise let her make her own decisions. How is that still such a foreign concept?

Okay, so I think this review may be starting to turn into a tangent, so I'm going to wrap it up now, but I will say that I look forward to reading the sequel to Bloodspell whenever it does come out, and I will be checking out Amalie Howard's other books as well.


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