Hearts at Stake

This book was recommended to me by Lady Storm and her blog is right here! and her review of the book is right here. Thank you for the recommendation!

Solange and Lucy (who's real name is Lucky) have been best friends from the time they were born. In fact, they are like sisters - so much so that Solange's seven brothers treat Lucy like she is their sister. The only problem they face right now is how to keep Solange safe. You see, she's a rare thing. Vampires are turned, not made - except for the Drake bloodline and Solange is the first female about to be vampire to come along in ages. What makes it hard to protect her is the fact that her pheromones are driving every male vampire in the world mad, and it's not like she wants the attention.

That's not the only problem though. Lady Natasha, a delusional female vampire who believes herself to be Queen of all Vampires, is threatened by Solange because of a prophecy that said a female vampire born and not made would rule all vampires. Of course power hungry Lady Natasha won't just hand over her crown. One night while the girls are enjoying their last bit of summer before school begins, Solange feels the presence of her 'admirers' and tells Lucy. The 'admirers' are not looking to be gentlemanly in their courting process. Luckily, Nick (Solange's brother) is there to save them. The tension increases though when her courters attack her home, even a human who works for an agency determined to wipe out vampires is now in on the hunt. A bounty has been put upon Solange's head increasing her danger. An interesting twist occurs when the human sent to kill her starts to see that she really isn't completely a monster, but will that save her and her family from the impending doom?

Lady Storm is quite right - this book was a light read (only 248 pages) and it wasn't boring. At first I was a bit confused in the beginning of the book, I had to get used to the switching of POVs (from Lucy to Solange back to Lucy etc.) I did feel at the beginning that it would be another sappy romance story and I was pleased that it was not. That's not to say there wasn't any romance, because there was but it was in a tolerable amount (thank goodness!)

I enjoyed Lucy who seemed to be an really interesting character. Rebellious but not quite that rebellious. Her parents seemed to be of the New Age persuasion only allowing Lucy to eat tofu and calm her chi, which constantly made Lucy irritated. I would be too if I could only eat tofu and not have soda in the house ;) I also enjoyed the many plot twists towards the end of the book - just when you think you've figured it out BAM! You've been thrown a curve ball.

I early await the second book in this series.

Books in this series:

1) Hearts at Stake

2) Blood Feud (June 2010)

Hearts at Stake by Alyxandra Harvey. New York (c) 2010