My Love Lies Bleeding by Alyxandra Harvey - Review

Synopsis via goodreads -

The Blake's are rather different to your usual neighbors. 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.

Another vampire novel, are you serious? We all know I love vampire's, crave them like some crave, well blood *smile*. And, this one was a wicked trip down the proverbial rabbit hole, that I was more than happy to jump into. My Love Lies Bleeding is a fast paced, awesome ride into a world like none I have ever been to before. I came away ready to jump with both feet into Blood Feud!

I enjoyed My Love Lies Bleeding, when picking it up I was not 100% sure what I was getting myself into. I remember trying to read this book a few months ago, but it never "took" but I know that the 2nd Drake novel, Blood Feud, is about to come out – and that one looks really interesting. So I took a chance, again – and in the end I am glad I did.

One thing that struck me with My Love Lies Bleeding is the amount of characters, honestly Solange has 7 brothers, 2 parents and more aunts and uncles that I care to count. Then when you add in Lucy, Solange's best friend (and only human in the book), and the "bad guys" - it equals one BIG cast of characters, that for me, was extremely hard to keep straight – at times. I found myself going, now was that Solange's brother, or maybe her uncle...

The world in which Alyxandra Harvey, for me, was at times hard to grasp, there's like 3 sets of "people" (and I use this term loosely) that could be considered "bad guys" depending on the place you are with in the novel. For me it got a bit confusing, trying to keep the battle lines straight in my mind...I almost felt like I needed a note book at times. That was until I decided to just "let go," allowing myself to stop forcing my thoughts onto the novel – if that even makes sense? I hope it does, because I am not sure I can explain more than that.

I found Alyxandra's writing style to be much like that of Cassandra Claire – I found myself with The Mortal Instruments series also struggling (at first) to catch up to the action, and grasp what was going on – but with both stories, after I gave into the writing fully, allowing myself to become almost part of it, was when the story started to flow naturally for me – and that's when the world of Solange and Lucy exploded!

The characters added so much to the world - Lucy is one touch chick...and Nicholas was a kick butt kinda guy. I did not get as "close to" Solange as I wanted to, but I have a feeling she's going to be making a HUGE impact in Blood Feud...and I really hope to see Kieran again, he's got a small part but he made such an impact.

I think now that the elements of the "world" have been set, it will be fun to see how the characters grow and develop, as well as to see where the story takes us...I am sure that we have not seen the last of Montmartre yet!

Bottom Line – I give My Love Lies Bleeding a 4 mushrooms, and I am super excited to read Blood Feud. Alyxandra's created such an intense world, rich with life and emotionally charged characters, that the next Drake novel is sure to be a shining star! If you have not picked up My Love Lies Bleeding (AKA Hearts At Stake), it's one of those great vampire novels you will not be sorry you read!

My Love Lies Bleeding (AKA Hearts at Stake)
Written by: Alyxandra Harvey
256 Pages
Published: January 4, 2010
Publisher: Bloomsbury