Review - Bleeding Hearts (Drake Chronicles, #4) by Alyxandra Harvey

Title: Bleeding Hearts

Author:  Alyxandra Harvey

Series: 4th (Hearts At Stake, Blood Feud, Out For Blood)

Pages: 304

Published: December 20th 2011 by Walker Books for Young Readers 

ISBN: 9780802722843

Source: Publisher via Netgalley

Description: As vampires from all over the world descend on the Drake farm for the Blood Moon gathering, security is ramped up. Lucy has been temporarily banned, for her own safety—and to allow Solange some time to adjust to her new existence. But their enemies realize how much Lucy means to the family, and plan to abduct her to use her for leverage against the new royal family. Instead, Lucy’s cousin Christabel is kidnapped by mistake—and Connor Drake immediately heads off in pursuit, but isn’t in time to prevent Christabel’s infection by the Hel Blar. He can’t save her human life, but he can still try to save her new vampire life, and is willing to put his own life on the line for the girl he has grown to care so much about. Can he save Christabel, the Blood Moon, and his mother’s newly forged Vampire Alliance?

I Give This ...

 

I've loved the Drake Chronicles to this point.  I like how it's a continuation of the same story, but a new character becomes a spotlight.  It seems like before the character gets their own story, we don't seem to know much about them.  I like how each character find their "perfect" match.  

What I liked about this story is the direction the storyline seems to be taking.  It's getting a little bit darker the deeper in we get.   The transition of power doesn't seem to be easy and it's interesting how it's effecting this family.  I actually hope we might get a book from the parents point of view eventually.  I think their story might be very interesting. There was a short story type of thing at the end, but I'm not sure if that was preview of the next book.  All I can say is I want more.  And I really want to know what the heck is going on with Solange.

I also really liked how we get a little bit more of the characters we've seen in previous books.  Nick and Lucy for example aren't just background characters in this book.  I've missed them!  I also really loved the way Lucy's character has grown.  She's staking her mark on the vampire world.  Even if she's only human.

I did feel the main characters of Connor and Christabel were a bit of a let down.  There was something missing from their story.  Christabel didn't seem to get fired up over anything, which made it hard for me to understand was Connor saw in her.  I did like Connor a little bit more.  It does seem the story played him off as the "geek" enough that I had a hard time getting to know him.

Obviously nothing that will keep me from reading the next book in the series.  The story ended with a cliffhanger, that I have to know what happens next.  Plus, I love enough of the characters that I want to see were the series takes them.