Hearts At Stake by Alyxandra Harvey

This title is also known as My Love Lies Bleeding.
Lucy and Solange have been best friends since they were kids despite that Solange’s family are vampires and at her upcoming sixteenth birthday she will become one too. But Solange is very different from the vampires of her family and others in the community. She is the very first born vampire that is a female. And there just happens to be a prophecy saying she will become queen. Though Solange wants nothing to do with this the current queen feels very threatened. As her sixteen birthday approaches she must put up with the growing gifts from courters, the overwhelming numbers of admirers that think her uniqueness in enthralling, and seven very overprotective brothers. Oh and the fact that the bloodchange could leave her dead.

The Good: With alternating points of view from Lucy and Solange, Hearts at Stake is a fun, admirable read. Lucy’s character is hilarious. She is fun, witty, and clever and with her hippy-parents-philosophy references she is an easy enjoyable character to read. Solange, similarly, is a character that I came to love. She is down-to-earth and strong-willed. She always wants to protect herself and to not be coddled. But with an Edward Cullen-like over protective family it provides a very interesting dynamic. This novel in essence is a upbeat, fairly-quick, mysterious vampire story that kicks butt.

The Bad: This novel, like any good novel, has romance. But it is weird at some places. Its hard to explain but I felt with switching points of view at cliff hanger end-of-chapters left some things – important things – left unsaid. This, overall, isn’t a huge deal. For some reason this kind of stuck with me. I personally love different points of view. I think it gives a story dynamic. But that said it should be done eloquently.

The Ugly Updates: This is Harvey’s first novel. Book two of the Drake Chronicles, Blood Feud, is out as of June (I hope to get my hands on a copy soon!). Out for Blood, the third book, is out December 22nd (USA).

Overall: A