Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

Bloodlines by Richelle Mead
Series: Bloodlines #1
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: August 25th 2011
Source: Library

Sydney protects vampire secrets - and human lives

Sydney belongs to a secret group who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the world of humans and vampires.

But when Sydney is torn from her bed in the middle of the night, she fears she's still being punished for her complicated alliance with dhampir Rose Hathaway. What unfolds is far worse. The sister of Moroi queen Lissa Dragomir is in mortal danger, and goes into hiding. Now Sydney must act as her protector.

The last thing Sydney wants is to be accused of sympathizing with vampires. And now she has to live with one...

As soon as I finished reading the Vampire Academy series I was extremely eager to start on the Bloodlines series so I ordered them all in from my library. I was hoping to read them all last month, but I never had the time to get around to them since I had so many other books to read. So I waited until this month so that I could marathon the first 4 books. I'm definitely glad I waited because everytime I finished a book I move straight on to the next one because I had to know what was going to happen next.

Bloodlines followed Sydney Sage (alchemist) who is sent to California to protect Jill because there was an attempt on her life. Eddie accompanies Jill to protect her and Adrian just tags along. All 4 of them have to pretend to be siblings to blend in and protect Jill. While Sydney is protecting Jill she discovers that there is something else going on in Palm Springs and she's determined to get to the bottom of it.

So my main reason for wanting to start this series so badly was Sydney. Although she wasn't in Vampire Academy that much, she was in it enough to interest me. Sydney is an alchemist. The alchemists are a secret group who work to protect humans from finding out that there are vampires in the world, which means they also help vampires (no matter how much they hate them/are scared of them). Sydney is just such an amazing female character. She's not supposed to like Vampires but after he adventures with Rose she's realised that they aren't as bad as she thought. Sydney is an extremely smart and reliable character. She always does her best to help everyone and that's one the things I really love about her. She's such a hilarious character because she's so naive. Sydney is all wrapped up in her own little world and I just love her.

And then there's Adrian. I never in a million years thought I would love Adrian more than Dimitri & Christian, but I do! Adrian is just one of the sweetest guys ever. He's absolutely hilarious and had me laughing my head off when he was messing around with Keith. Adrian has his own problems going on which are revealed throughout the book and he's still trying to get over Rose. Adrian is just so adorable and I love him to bits.

There was a hell of a lot going on in this book. Sydney was rooming with Jill at school and was doing her best to protect and look out for her, but Jill had her own problems going on that Sydney didn't know about. Adrian was the only one who could help her and that led to me piecing some things together. I also liked that we eventually got to find out what happened at the Palace when Jill was attacked. Everything was being kept under wraps for quite a while because there were things Sydney didn't know, so I enjoyed uncovering them. There were people at school who were getting tattoo's to enhance their abilities and Sydney started to think there was something off about them, so she decided to investigate. And, as if that wasn't enough to be dealing with, there were also girls being killed and they were being classes as Strigoi attacks even though their throats were slit. So yeah, Sydney had a lot on her plate in this book but she handle it all.

The ending was fantastic and revealed a lot of things I never expected (minus the Keith revelation, because I expected that one). There was action, Sydney being badass and a fantastic last sentence that left me squealing and jumping up and down. 

Overall, I actually think I enjoyed Bloodlines a lot more than Vampire Academy. I just couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next so as soon as I finished this one I dove straight into The Golden Lily. If you're a fan of the Vampire Academy series and you haven't started reading Bloodlines yet, I definitely, definitely recommend that you do!