Reviews - Promesse de sang

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“Roza.” His voice had that same wonderful lowness, the same accent . . . it was all just colder. “You forgot my first lesson: Don’t hesitate.”

This book was almost as good as book 3. I admit the first half dragged a ton. It was sweet to get to know Dimitri's family (Yeva is absolutely the MVP), be introduced to new characters that will likely play a role in the future, and explore the world outside of the academy. I know we spent time in the first half basically setting the stage but at some point it felt like we were lingering for page count and not any actual development. However the second half was straight up the best thing I have read in this series yet.

Dimitri is finally interesting. Rereading this I kind of wondered what I ever found interesting about Dimitri because he's quite boring. As a Strigoi he almost reminded me of Angel from the Buffy series and not just another broody man that Rose had put up on a pedestal. Dimitri may physically look th same (minus the red eyes) but emotionally he was manipulative, short tempered and obsessive. He was perfect. The emotional turmoil Rose went through was perfectly described. He is and isn't Dimitri and the pain of processing that realization, instead of escaping, was spot on. And her actual escape was a sequence of heart pounding and agonizing events that had me glued to the page.

While I enjoyed the trips into Lissa's head to keep up with what was going on at the school I really would have preferred to see these events through Adrian's eyes. I don't know, Adrian really stepped up this book and showed there was more to him than just his pretty boy persona. It would have been a nice reprieve from the heaviness of Rose's constant perspective. I remembered pretty early on that Avery wasn't who she pretended to be but it was hard to watch Lissa basically implode her life.

I know in my last review I said moving forward I was going in blind but as soon as I started reading this book I started to remember the plot points. I honestly don't remember how this series continues/ends (the last two books came out while I was in college) but given how we ended I am ready to see Rose finally give Adrian a shot and the return of our anti-hero to get his revenge.

“You forgot another lesson: Never turn your back until you know your enemy is dead. Looks like we’ll have to go over the lesson again the next time I see you—which will be soon. Love, D.”

Personal Notes

Spoiler

-“Why do you think guardian numbers are dwindling? They’re leaving to have homes and families. Or they’re going off like you, still fighting but answering to no one—unless they’re hired to be bodyguards or Strigoi hunters.”
- He turned to me, expression surprised once more. “Why don’t you just have your bondmate heal the darkness out of you?”