Hearts at Stake (The Drake Chronicles, #1) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Jun 21, 2010 Steph rated it really liked it

Shelves: age-group-ya-na, year-read-2010, series-ongoing, author-웃, series-book1

Hearts at Stake (aka: My Love Lies Bleeding) is the first book in The Drake Chronicles.

It was an enjoyable read. Definitely had a G-rating, good for YA and "cute" for adults. The love interests are "girlfriend/boyfriend". Of course, that all makes sense when you consider that, even though the Drake family is one of the ancient families of vampires, the heroine, Solange, is just coming up on her sixteenth birthday. She has seven older brothers who are all extremely protective of her. Her mom ...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Nairabell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: teen-ya-paranormal, 4-star, read-in-2011

Solange Drake is the only female vampire ever born and, as she nears her sixteenth birthday when she will transform fully, she is being pursued by vampiric suitors and enemies alike. The Drakes are in exile from the vampire world due to the jealousy of the Queen over their unique gift - they are one of the few remaining vampire families capable of producing children. Solange has grown up caught between the vampire world and the human one, and no one knows her better than her best friend Lucy. Bu Solange Drake is the only female vampire ever born and, as she nears her sixteenth birthday when she will transform fully, she is being pursued by vampiric suitors and enemies alike. The Drakes are in exile from the vampire world due to the jealousy of the Queen over their unique gift - they are one of the few remaining vampire families capable of producing children. Solange has grown up caught between the vampire world and the human one, and no one knows her better than her best friend Lucy. But when Solange is kidnapped, Lucy finds herself caught between saving her best friend and fighting her attraction to Solange's brother Nicholas.

This was originally published in the US as Hearts at Stake. I picked up a copy because it sounded interesting and had pretty good reviews. The narrative is split between Lucy and Solange which is great because the author has managed to create two distinct voices for the characters. There are a couple of overlaps between the two perspectives which is great because you get an outsiders view on a situation rather than just being stuck in a characters head.

The book is quite short, coming in at only 248 pages, but it has a lot packed in. There are two romances, the setup of an entire vampiric world (including multiple kinds of vampire), the introduction of the Drake family (Solange has 7 brothers, plus her parents and extended relatives) and the introduction of vampire hunters. The book feels squished - there is so much fit in that even when the action isn't on the page, some kind of detailed explanation is. I don't know how much of this is down to 'first-book-in-a-series-itis', but it definitely dented my enjoyment.

Character wise this book has a bit of an overload, but the main four characters (Lucy, Solange, Nicholas and Kieran) are well developed and I liked all of them. The two romances were distinct, although Solange's had way less development than Lucy's and if it had been the only romance it would have been very disappointing. I loved how Lucy and Nicholas had a snarky love/hate relationship, and also how the relationship gradually grew throughout the book. It looks like the series is set to continue with book for each Drake brother: book 2 (Blood Feud out now) features Logan; book 3 (Out for Blood out now) focuses on Quinn; and book 4 (Bleeding Hearts out November 2011) is all about Connor.

All in all this was a good quick read but while I will continue with the series at some point it isn't top of my list.

Plot: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Ending: 9/10
Enjoyment: 7/10
Cover: 8/10

Overall: 44/50 ...more

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