Vampire's Kiss

Publisher: New American Libarary/Penguin group

Publish Date: 6 March 2012

Source: ARC from publisher

Series: The Watchers

Other Books in the Series: Isle of Night, Blood Fever (August 2012)

IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE PARTNERED WITH A VAMPIRE, YOU HAVE TO WORK THE NIGHT SHIFT.

By her wits, blood, and sacrifice, so far Drew has survived the intensive training on the Isle of Night. As a second-year Acari, her ultimate goal is to become a Watcher, and now she has a shot at her first mission. Except nothing is as it seems. The vampire Alcántara is as sinister as he is sexy, Ronan is more distant than ever, and it turns out there are other vampires out there. Bad ones.

Ancient, bloodthirsty, and powerful, these undead are really old school. They’ve captured one of the Watcher vamps and are torturing him for information. The only chance to save him is to infiltrate a major summit the baddies are holding on their own island. There will be mortals there, serving as butlers, maids, and various hired help. Drew had better brush up on her skills as a serving girl, because she’s about to go undercover…

But, when their vampire prisoner turns out to be a gorgeous bad boy, Drew’s first mission quickly turns into more than she bargained for…

Annelise Drew aka Acari Drew has won the Directorate Award competition and things return to “normal” on Eyja næturinnar or the Isle of Night after the competition.  Annelise’s prize for winning is that she gets to accompany the vampire Alcántara on a mission off the island.  She had been looking forward to this because she is planning on escaping the Isle of Night.  That is her main focus.  Alcántara shows greater interest in her and Annelise is sure that he has interfered with things in the past.  She has to take these strange classes, including ballroom dancing, in order to prepare for their mission, which she has no details of.

The one thing that makes her happy on the Isle of Night is Ronan.   After her victory in the Directorate Award competition, he seems more distant than ever.  Annelise, being a genius, likes to think things through.  She wonders why Alcántara is showing favoritism toward her and what is going on with her and Ronan?

When Annelise finally finds out the details of the mission, she is happy that it is finally coming near and understands the reasoning for some of the classes she was forced to take.  She learns that there are good and bad vampires and they are going to try to save one of the good ones.  She is going undercover as a serving girl to ascertain the location of the vampire that they are rescuing.  She plans to escape after helping rescue this vampire.  Things don’t always go as planned.  After this mission, the lines between good and bad are very hazy.  The vampire she was saving, Carden McCloud, isn’t what she expected.

I thought this was a great sophomore book in the Watcher series.  It was interesting to read.  Wolff really draws you into the story.  There was a few times where I would gasp because of what happened.  A lot of my questions were answered from Isle of Night, but so many more were raised with this book.  I am really looking forward to Blood Fever coming out in August 2012!

On the cover is a male, who I’m presuming to be Carden McCloud and Annelise.  There is also a monastery, and I’m presuming this to be where the mission will take placed.  Again, I like the colors and found myself looking at the cover quite a few times while reading the book.  I especially like that you can see their eyes so well.

 

•Annelise Drew.  I like her attitude.  She is a fighter.  She has been through an abusive relationship with her father and ended up at the Isle of Night because of her IQ.  She questions why she has to learn all the stuff that they make her do, but she does it because she wants out of there.  She makes friends in Yasuo and Emma and that is unexpected for her.  She doesn’t know how to be a friend.

•Yasuo and Emma.  Annelise’s friends.  Even though she is new at friendship and doesn’t always say or do the right thing, they are loyal to her. 

•Josh.  I wanted to talk about Josh in the Isle of Night review, but I thought I would save it for Vampire’s Kiss.  He is Annelise’s German Etiquette tutor.  He is from Australia and is training to become a vampire.  He has good standards and is a gentleman.  He helps Annelise in more ways than one.   I am interested to see what happens to Josh further on in the Watchers series.

•Carden McCloud.  He is the vampire that they are rescuing from the bad vampires.  He makes snarky comments.

 

• Alcántara.  He is a vampire and is just creepy.  Every time I would read about him, it would give me the chills. 

•The Isle of Night.  I do not like the things that happen there between the Acari, vampires, tracers and proctors.

•The Bad Vampires.  They are “bad.”

Don't forget to check out my contest where you can win a personalized, autographed ARC of Vampire's Kiss from Veronica Wolff.  Unfortunately, this contest is restricted to US only.