St. Vladimir's Summer School: Blood Promise

Ashelynn at Gypsy Book Reviews, Jen at Jen Ryland/YA Romantics and Steph at The Fake Steph Dot Com  started the St. Vladimir's Summer School. So I figured I would tag along and read some Vampire Academy since I still hadn't read it!! Lauren at The Headless Owl has also joined us this week!

Blood Promise
(Vampire Academy #4)

Author: Richelle Mead

Publication Date: August 25th 2009

Publisher: Razorbill

Genre: Urban Fantasy / Paranormal

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Synopsis:

Rose Hathaway's life will never be the same.

The recent attack on St. Vladimir's Academy devastated the entire Moroi world. Many are dead. And, for the few victims carried off by Strigoi, their fates are even worse. A rare tattoo now adorns Rose's neck, a mark that says she's killed far too many Strigoi to count. But only one victim matters . . . Dimitri Belikov. Rose must now choose one of two very different paths: honoring her life's vow to protect Lissa—her best friend and the last surviving Dragomir princess—or, dropping out of the Academy to strike out on her own and hunt down the man she loves. She'll have to go to the ends of the earth to find Dimitri and keep the promise he begged her to make. But the question is, when the time comes, will he want to be saved?

Now, with everything at stake—and worlds away from St. Vladimir's and her unguarded, vulnerable, and newly rebellious best friend—can Rose find the strength to destroy Dimitri? Or, will she sacrifice herself for a chance at eternal love?

My Thoughts: Ok, I'm not really sure where to start with this one. This series is just so amazing, I still can't believe I've never read it before. I loved Blood Promise almost as much as Shadow Kiss, but not quite! There was a lot that happened and it was fairly fast paced, always a good thing. I can say that once again it was extremely hard not to pick up the next book immediately after finishing it. Richelle Mead is quickly becoming one of my new favorite authors, I just love her writing style and characters so much!

It pretty much started off where Shadow Kiss leaves off.  Rose leaves school to go in search of Strigoi Dimitri. She hears that he went back to Russia and so she goes there and starts looking. She leaves lots of other dead Strigoi behind her, but there is no sign of Dimitri.  Eventually she meets Sydney, an Alchemists, who isn't very happy about Rose's trail of bodies since she's the one who's been cleaning them all up. Sydney takes Rose to Dimitri's hometown and Rose meets Dimitri's family and feels right at home with them. She delivers the bad news and they have a funeral for Dimitri. Eventually, Rose continues on looking for Dimitri, and finds him! But can she really kill him?

Rose grows even more in this book. She realizes more about her relationship with Lissa and Dimitri. She realizes that her mom  isn't so different from her after all and that sometimes duty does have to come first. She loses the man she loves, nearly loses her best friend, she almost even loses her life. I like her character a lot more than I did when I started out the series, she just matures so much with each new book. I'm still holding out for her and Adrian, but after the ending of Blood Promise I'm not to sure what's going to happen with them anymore. Dimitri is absolutely psychotic in this one, of course, he is a Strigoi so it  is expected.

Blood Promise is an amazing read. You really should read the series if you haven't. As I said, Richelle Mead is a wonderful author and she has created this cast of characters that I can't get enough of. Luckily, there is another series based in the same universe, so I'm looking forward to reading that one as well. Seriously, read. It. Now! You won't be sorry you did! I'm off to read the next book now!