Top Five Paranormal Countdown - #3


 Hey, folks. Here in the northern hemisphere, it's the first day of summer! It's a beautiful day in Charlotte, North Carolina. I hope it's nice where you are. 
 But, enough chit-chat. I’m in the middle of sharing with you my all-time favorite paranormal fantasy book series. Here’s where we stand so far in the top-five countdown…

#5  The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
#4 The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs

And today, coming in at number three, is Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series for Young Adults. The series follows the teenage, half-vampire, Rose Hathaway, as she finishes high school, comes of age as a Guardian, saves the world (at least her corner of it), and gets her sexy soul mate in the end.

I’d been a fan of Mead’s adult books for a while, resisting her YA offerings, until the buzz created by this series finally began to get to me and I took the plunge. There was a reason for all the hype. The series has crossed over from its genre to the general YA audience, and there is a movie in the works.
I’ve yet to be disappointed with any of Ms. Mead’s books. This chick can write!

What I liked…

The whole cast of characters…
Well, most of them anyway. Rose Hathaway is a classic YA heroine, and her BFF relationship with Lissa, which involves a bond way beyond friendship, is enough to drive the series in itself. Mead is a master (mistress?) at drawing you into the world of a character and making you fall in love with them.

The forbidden love…
The sexual chemistry between the underage (in the beginning of the series) Rose and her older instructor, Dimitri, is the best of any series I’ve read. The scenes where they are fighting or working out together, trying not to tear each other’s clothes off, are classic.

The Academy…
A school for vampires and dhampirs… need I say more? This is high school for the supernatural. There’s no need to hide what you are. The cliques, the angst, and all the dysfunctional hierarchy within such an institution that makes a YA story what it is, it’s all here.

The action…
Lots of it. I mean, lots. Rose Hathaway is relentless in getting herself into and out of physical danger without too many pages intervening.

The series ends…
     Richelle Mead knows when to call it quits with a series, while she’s on top. She drew the story out over six novels and left us wanting more, knowing she could easily have sold scads more books on the strength of what she’d already written. And she cleverly kept most of the characters we love in the background of a spinoff series that promises to be every bit as good as the original.

What I didn’t like…

Good vampires / Bad Vampires…
The Moroi are the good vampires. They only feed from volunteers and never kill them. The Strigoi are savage and blood-thirsty and kill to feed. It works for the story, but I can’t help but regard all vampires as a necessary evil. Guess I’d make a good Alchemist, huh? (One of the secret society that protects humans from knowing vampires exist, like Sydney in Mead’s Bloodlines spinoff series.)

Adrian…
Why, oh why, do girls find this kind of guy attractive and sexy, I will never understand. Unfortunately, Mead tries to redeem him by making him Sydney’s love interest in the Bloodlines spinoff. Yuck.
 


What I stole…

Nothing…
… consciously. The bond that starts to develop between Clifford and Nicole towards the end of The Dragon of Doughton Park has similar elements to Rose and Lissa’s, but I didn’t even think of the parallels until now. So, it wasn’t a conscious theft on my part. Still, I’m a huge Richelle Mead fan, and I’m sure I try to emulate her writing way more than I’m willing to admit.

----------------

Next time… number two in my top five.

Nobody guessed any of my top three last week. I even left a hint, that two of the top three were by the same author.
Soooo…
I issue the challenge again! Anyone who can guess either of my top two wins a prize. Leave a comment what you think it might be.

Until then… happy reading!


 

Comments

  1. Kristy BerridgeJune 21, 2013 at 5:21 PM

    Hey John, Yep, this is also one of my favourites, but I gotta say, I loved Adrian and actually felt quite sad for him a lot of the time. Now I'm reading the spin off series, I'm stoked he's found Sidney.
    Another good choice my friend, can't wait to see what your number one is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John HundleyJune 21, 2013 at 6:45 PM

    Yeah, Kristy, I figured you'd like Adrian, too, you being a gurrl and all. Sigh. I'm afraid my girl, Sydney, will end up with him after a few more Bloodlines. Inevitable, I suppose. She could do better. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Deep-Seated Psychological Reasons I Write About Werewolves

Image
Christmas Day, 2012 5:30 pm    I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. Myself, I’ve been working on this little blog post off and on for the last four days. It’s been hard to find time, what with all the feasting and family, but I’ve finally got all my obligations and ‘fun’ out of the way, a fresh cup of coffee made with my new French press I got for Christmas, and I’m ready to post! Holiday Giveaway    Several weeks ago I resolved to give a book away each week during the holidays to a lucky reader who left a comment on my blog. So far, I’m way behind. Only one person has left a comment out of all the folks that visit my blog each week. I can’t believe that you guys are willing to buy these things, but I can’t give ‘em away!    I’m starting to develop a complex. No, I already have one. The only thing I can figure is you’re not making it to the end of my long-winded ramblings and therefore not scrolling down far enough to read about the giveaway.    So I’m postin
Read more

Vella Could Change Everything

From July 17, 2021: Well, not everything, of course. But it may change the self-publishing landscape significantly. Hi, packmates. Time for my middle-of-the-month blog update. After months and months of hype, this week Amazon finally launched Kindle Vella, a platform where readers can read episodes of serialized stories without having to purchase or borrow an entire book. It might change the way authors write, especially indie writers like myself. In fact, I’ve already revised my writing schedule and goals for 2021 and 2022. I wanted to be a published author most of my life. One of the stumbling blocks I could never overcome was the specter of endless submissions to (and rejections from) publishers that most writers go through for years before any of their work gets in front of actual readers. When digital platforms like Amazon KDP surfaced in the first decade of this century, that specter was gone. It was relatively simple to get what you had written formatted, even printed,
Read more

Release Day!

Image
        Just for grins, I looked through the C:\Writings directory on my laptop and checked the creation dates for some of my project folders. On September 20, 2012, at 10:16 pm, I moved some notes, a brief outline, and a copy of the last scene in Dragon of Doughton Park (it became the Prologue for the sequel) into a folder called, “Red Wolf Rising.” At the time, I remember thinking I’d knock out the final book of the Red Wolf Trilogy in about nine months, getting it into catalogs and on shelves well before Christmas, 2013.         Did I underestimate that task, or what?         For those of you who read the first two books and waited all this time the see WTF was going to happen ( Dragon ended with a bit of a cliffhanger), book three is finally here!      This past Friday, March 6, 2015, Red Wolf Rising became available in print and Kindle format on Amazon. Purchase a Printed Copy Purchase for Kindle      And over the weekend, I got it formatted for you Nook fans…
Read more