Walker Children's
December 20, 2011
304 pages
add to Goodreads/buy on Amazon
Things are definitely different around Violet Hill.
One thing hasn't changed, though. The Drakes still have their enemies.
Enemies who have realized just how much Lucy means to the family. When they attempt to kidnap Lucy and get Christabel by mistake, the entire Drake family is in pursuit . . but Connor especially.
Christabel who doesn't know about vampires and doesn't understand why she has to stay inside after dark has found her attention to the 'nice' Drake boy. The one who offers to fix her computer.
When she's threatened by Hel-Bar, will he be quick enough to save her?
Arghh! Okay, now that I'm done screaming about the ending of Bleeding Hearts, let's get to how amazingly awesomely fantastic it was. I absolutely love the Drake Chronicles series and Bleeding Hearts just might be my favorite of all of them.
The Drake Chronicles is a fantastic series; it's one of the very few that easily brings your right back into the story and the characters' lives. With so many series, by the time a successive book is released it's near impossible to remember what's happening with the plot and/or the characters, not so with The Drake Chronicles.With this series - and this book in particular - a few well places sentences throughout the beginning bring the reader up to speed and they remember what's happening. It's great.
All the best snark, humor and romance of the earlier three books are present in this book - in spades. Not to mention it's probably the plottiest (not a word, I know, but still very fitting) of all the books in the series. Plot points from all the previous books come to a head in this the fourth book, yet it's not too heavy, either.
Christabel and Connor are near perfect as the romantic leads. Chritabel has her book geekiness and her has his Star Wars, computer, etc geekiness - they're so lovable and fit together so perfectly. It's also great that their traits aren't used as ways to single them out (in a bad way) or exclude them from everyone else. They are different from, say, Lucy or Nicholas or Solange but in Bleeding Hearts it makes them great.
New characters are introduced to this series with each new novel and I love that they're each given their own story line and background, one that expands on the central story of the series. None of the characters seem to pop up out of nowhere or distract from what'a been happening in the series thus far. Kudos to Alyxandra Harvey for continually expanding the Drake's world so well.
The ending did make me want to scream - that or have Blood Moon (the next book in the series) in my hands ready to read - but only in the best way possible.
After the ending of Bleeding Hearts there is a short story (about 50 pages), "Lost Girls," about some of the adult Drake Chronicles characters as teens. It's a glimpse into the characters and how things all started. And will likely leave you wanting a book about some of them at some point, too! (I think "Lost Girls" is in print versions only.)
If you're not reading this series yet, I can't recommend highly enough that you start - like right now and get this book on the 20th!!
Rating: 10+/10
Read thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Bloomsbury - ginormous thank you!!
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