Book Review: My Love Lies Bleeding by Alyxandra Harvey.

Product details:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
Paperback, 256 pages.
Release date: January 4th 2010.
Rating: 2½ out of 5
Series: Drake Chronicles #1
Source: Received from publisher for review.

The Blakes are rather different to your usual neighbours. They are vampires and some of the members of the family date back to the twelfth century. One of the children, Solange, is the only born female vampire known and, as such, she poses a direct threat to the vampire queen. Her best friend Lucy is human, and when Solange is kidnapped Lucy and Solange's brother, Nicholas, set out to save her. Lucy soon discovers that she would like to be more than just friends with Nicholas. But how does one go about dating a vampire? Meanwhile, Solange finds an unlikely ally in Kieran, a vampire slayer on the hunt for his father's killer. 

I’m always excited to start on a new Vampire book, and  My Love Lies Bleeding had been on my wishlist for quite a while, so I was pretty excited when I received the first two books in this series for review.  I dove into My Love Lies Bleeding at the weekend, thinking that I may be about to find a great new Young Adult saga to fall in love with, but that didn’t happen, and I have to say that overall, this one was a little disappointing for me.

First off, I will say that the premise of the book is pretty interesting, as is the historical aspect of the book.  I loved the thought of a large family of vampires that had existed through the ages, and I really wanted to learn that history and get to know the characters well.  That didn’t really happen here.  There are a lot of characters for sure, including no less than seven yummy vampire boys, but mostly we don’t learn anything more than their names. I often felt like I was being presented with yet another name, and was just meant to draw my own conclusions on the character.  In any YA saga that I’ve fallen in love with, the story usually centres around two characters, with some fringe characters or other main characters introduced later in the series.  That works. Here you have a large family to get to know, as well as a best friend, a potential boyfriend, lots of enemies with confusing names, and an extended family of vampire aunts, uncles and cousins.  It’s just too much for such a short book to contend with.

This book is told from the viewpoints of vampire Solange* and her human best friend Lucy. I liked the alternating viewpoints in this book between the two, and I have to say I actually preferred the character of Lucy, who is very feisty, and the real heroine of the book in my opinion. I felt that out of all the characters in this book, she was the one that I got to know best.  I’m also a fan of a little romance in books, I have many vampire crushes, and I admit that the flirtation between Lucy and Nicholas was one of my favourite aspects of the book.  However, everything in the book is a little rushed. At one point, Nick refers to Lucy as his girlfriend, when they have kissed maybe twice. What’s with the rush?!

The writing style in the book is very simple and direct and the action scenes are numerous, so I’m sure many of you vampire fans will love this one.  The storyline and the characters definitely show promise, and I have a gut feeling that this series will get better as it develops.  The potential was there in this book, it just wasn’t properly executed. With that in mind, and because I like the idea of the Drake family history, I’m going to check out Blood Feud, book #2 in The Drake Chronicles.

*Big thumbs down to Solange as a vampires name.  Just no.