Book Review: Bloodspell (Bloodspell #1) by Amalie Howard

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release date: June 1, 2011
Publisher: Langdon Street Press
394 Pages

The spell was simple...

Cruentus Protectum (Defend the Blood)

But what do you do if your blood is your enemy?

Victoria Warrick has always known she was different. An outcast at school, she is no stranger to adversity. But when she receives an old journal for her seventeenth birthday, nothing prepares her for the dark secrets it holds -- much less one that reveals she's a witch with unimaginable power.

What's more, when she meets the dazzling but enigmatic Christian Devereux, she has no idea how much her life is about to change. Enemies will hunt her. Friends will turn on her. The terrible curse that makes her blood run black will stop at nothing to control her. And Christian has a sinister secret of his own...

Without knowing whom to trust, can Victoria survive her blood's deadly desires? Or will she lose everything, including herself?

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Review:

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I mean, look at that cover! It’s so pretty! But alas, Bloodspell did not live up to its prettiness.

The book seemed to have an interesting premise: girl discovers that she’s not only a witch, but a cursed witch. With her new powers comes her family history and all of the sworn eternal enemies as well, not to mention, she bleeds black blood.

Interesting, right? Well, kinda.

This book follows the premise of tons of other YA books out there. New girl meets mysterious boy on her first day of school. They have an instant attraction to where they can’t stay away from each other, or can’t stop thinking about each other. The first time they touch it’s electrifying (I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be electrocuted by a boy).There’s hinting’s to a love triangle.

Then…there’s the Twilight aspect. New girl meets mysterious vampire on first day of school. Her blood calls to him like none other has before. But then, for no apparent reason, he’s a jerk to her. But wait, then he’s nice. But the he says they can’t be friends (whiplash anyone?). Victoria even at one point tells Christian to “stop looking at me like I’m something to eat.” He tells her that he’s a monster and they can’t be together. They even have the myth or fact conversation about vampires. Sigh…

Once I accepted the above and moved past them, the story itself was okay, but unfortunately, it all just fell flat to me. I enjoyed the history between the vamps and witches. It wasn’t just the vamps and witches hate each other for no reason. No, the author created a very intriguing backstory.

There were things about this book that I really did like: Christian, despite his Edward-like tendencies, was a good character toward the last half of the book. His background and history with his family was one of the more interesting parts of the story. His feud with his brother, Lucien, could have taken up the whole book and I would have been happy about it. I also liked that the author had Victoria use a familiar. I loved her familiar. For those of you who don’t know what a familiar is, it’s basically a supernatural being that helps guide a witch.

Victoria I was kind of eh about. At times she was fine, other times she was whiney and annoying, and she kept putting herself in these situations where she had to be saved or ended up needing help.  I didn’t root for the love story like I should have, but I honestly didn’t really feel it. And while I thought the ending was building to something different, the one that we ended up getting felt very melodramatic. Kind of like a grown child throwing a hissy fit.  I will say here that I went into this book thinking it was a standalone and not a series, so looking back, I can see why the ending I was looking for didn’t happen.

Another issue I had was the writing style itself. Using third person omniscient was very jolting. There were no breaks, it just kept switching. I feel like it would have worked better using the chapters as breaks.

Will I continue this series? Maybe…probably, just to see how things turn out with Christian and Lucien because that was the only thing that really held my interest.

Side note: at one point, Gabriel says “I changed everything for you.” WHAT DOES HE MEAN?? It’s never explained! Gah, drove me nuts!

JENN 

Thanks to Netgalley and Langdon Street Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.