Blood Moon by Alyxandra Harvey

Series: Drake Chronicles, Book Five

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Format: Paperback

Published: 5^th June 2012

Number of Pages: 368

Book: For Review*

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Dark Romance, Paranormal, Thriller-Suspense, Humour, Action-Adventure, YA

Recommended Age: 12+

Contains: Violence, Death, Swearing, Alcohol References

No Drug References

Author's Blog: Alyxandra Harvey

“I can still taste his blood, Lucy.  I can smell it everywhere.  It’s in the grass, in the air, on me.  I’m not safe.”

When the vampire tribes convene for the rare Blood Moon ceremonies, Solange Drake is plunged into a battle with her feral nature.  The Drake brothers have been raised knowing they had to protect their younger sister at all cost.  But forbidden magic and a mysterious stranger have put all of them in terrible danger. 

Nicholas is going to have to make a difficult choice: between his girlfriend, Lucy, and his little sister, Solange – blood, or love?

                                                                   Review:

I'm not going to be exaggerating when I tell you I have about a million quotes from this book written down on random scraps of paper.  When something makes you laugh as much as this made me, it's criminal not to write it down.  Now I can't even tell you guys how amazing this book was.  It's so many kinds of awesome it's untrue.  If you haven't read this series yet, I'm gonna do the book review equivalent of begging on my knees.  I... am going to say please, IN CAPITOL LETTERS!

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read the Drake Chronicles and discover the awesomeness for yourself.  It's so utterly and all-round amazing: you'll love it forever.  And you'll love every single one of the Drake brothers too.  'Cause they're yummy.  Very, very yummy...

“Solange was gone. 

“I wasn't sure who was standing in front of me.  She might have Solange's ethereal beauty and her ballerina grace, but she wasn't Solange...”

Solange Drake changed when she became a vampire.  Now she's struggling to hold onto her humanity, to keep the feral side of herself at bay. 

Her brothers have been raised to protect Sol, knowing they must keep her safe no matter what. 

But with the vampire tribes gathering for the Blood Moon ceremony, bringing with it a mysterious stranger who is putting them all in terror danger, can Nicholas keep Solange safe?

Especially when he's forced between Lucy, the girl he loves, and Solange, his baby sister...

This series...  Oh, how I love it.  It's shot way up my fave series list: no matter how many books I read, it never gets even the tiniest bit dull.  I could actually read about it all forever and ever.  And then a little more.  If you haven't read this series, please, please do!  All the books are amazing, addictive, almost drug-like in the addictiveness. Whenever I put Blood Moon down, I was instantly desperate it pick it right back up and read and read and read.  And yes, it really was that good!

I love all the characters in this series, even the smaller one.  But Lucy is just my favourite character ever.  She totally kills me, with her loathing of taking orders and that insane vampire rights activist side, what with her hatred of “rampant vampire racism"!  God, she's awesome.  People could learn from the way she handled bullies.  Well, y'know, the ones she doesn't punch in the nose or pepper-egg...  Nicholas Drake, how I love you!  How can you not when he says things like: "I knew damn well if Lucy broke up with me I'd still love her until I turned to dust."  He’s so brave, strong, wonderful, and just perfect.  But please, oh please let that last bit not be true!!  Solange was just… whoa.  Terrifying.  I wanted to jump into the book and slap the stupid outta her.  I am so insanely glad there's a reason for the freakiness, but man!  She was scary! 

And I loved seeing some of my old favourites, like Chloe, a Helios Ra student and Lucy and Hunter’s friend.  And I almost forgot how kickbutt awesome Hunter is!  I also really liked newcomer Jenna – the snarky retort scenes between her and Lucy had me cracking up!  I also love Kieran, especially as we learn more about his past.  But Constantine: grr!  He reminded me of Spike from Buffy, but without the yumminess.  I trusted the guy about as far as I could throw him (not far at all, given my lack of upper body strength).  I just couldn’t get a read on the blasted guy: ergo, grr-ing.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's my favourite Drake of them all?*

God, I love the Drake family - the brothers in particular.  They kill me!  I love the banter and jokes and how they'd do anything for one another.  They’re all so loyal, protective and yummy.  And their parents totally rock too!  But why must you make me fall head over heels in love with this family, Alyx, and then terrify me about their safety?  Why, why; WHY?!  *sniffles* Nicky...

I adore the writing in this series.  I love the split POV, how we get into everyone's heads, how all the voices sound unique.  And, oh, how awesome it was to finally have Nicholas as a narrator!  While I loved the Sol chapters (though they were mega creepy), Lucy and Nick just stole the show!  They're both so funny and my two favourite characters - and my favourite couple ever!  And, man, I love the plots in these books.  Action-packed, suspenseful, twisty and addictive – double dollop of each with a nice spoonful of romance too.  But after I finished Blood Moon… Damn it, Alyxandra Harvey: another worst freaking cliff-hanger EVER!  You’re gonna drive me insane – my sanity (already pretty sketchy) is at stake here!  (See what I did, with the joke ‘bout the stake?  Heehee, I thought it was funny anyhoo…  But it could just be me going crazy already…)

With more suspense, twists, mystery and the WORST EVER CLIFFHANGER, Blood Moon quite literally rocked my world.  I could not put it down.  At all.  Ever.  It was so addictive, so amazing, so... wow!  I can't put into words how all round awesome it was.  So I'll just say this: if you only read one vampire series ever, please, please, PLEASE make it this one!  It’s my favourite vamp series… Plus, the Drake boys are all so totally yummy!

Extra Mini Review of Lost Girls by Alyxandra Harvey

The short story at the end of my book, Lost Girls, was more than awesome.  I love Helena - she's the coolest mom ever - and it was awesome getting to see why she's so kickbutt!  It made me love her even more!  And Liam Drake has always been 'Dad', but in this... he's actually kinda hot.  Maybe it should be weird, fancying Nick's dad, but really it's just another Drake boy for me to love.  It's so easy to just think of them as parents, but after this they’re so much more!  I love them even more and totally get them now too.  And the story line of Lost Girls totally rocked!  It was just such an awesome little novella!  I loved it to pieces!  I always knew Helena was kickbutt, but I never knew how kickbutt!  As for Cass, Lucy’s mum?  Man, can I see the mother-daughter resemblance! 

*P.S. This is a reference to the inspiration of the story: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: get it, Sol is Snow and her brothers are the dwarves!  Ha! 

Star Rating:
5 Out of 5

Read this book if you liked:

Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Medusa Girls by Tera Lynn Childs

Challenges It's Taking Part In:

100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge 2012 (Hosted by Book Chick City)

Happy Reading

Megan

* This book was received from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review