Bleeding Hearts by Alyxandra Harvey

Bloomsbury, 2011. ISBN 9781408814970.
Bleeding Hearts is a really enjoyable novel that has action, thrill, love and mystery. It is also the fourth in the series, The Drake chronicles.
Late teenager Lucy is the star of the book, being the main character and the one with the connections to the Drake family (a family of vampires in which includes her best friend and boyfriend). It all changes when Lucy's cousin from the city, Christabel, unknowingly threatens to reveal the Drake's secret, especially when she comes face to face with a Hel-Blar, one of the most dangerous vampire/monsters you have ever encountered.
At the beginning of the novel, the annual Blood moon Vampire council meeting is in process. Solange (Lucy's best friend and the Vampire Princess of the Drakes) is avoiding Lucy for reasons unknown, and is acting suspicious after almost drinking a poisoned batch of blood. The Drakes have their hands full when they are called to help prevent the rising of the Hel-Blar, Blue skinned monsters that smell like a marsh and horribly like rotting mushrooms and to run the Blood moon. Everyone is [erplexed when a messenger arrow arrives with a message from Saga (whoever that is). Nobody has a clue to who this stranger is. Could she have had anything to do with the poisoning of Solange's blood? The end of the novel is wrapped in action and thrill as Christabel goes missing, what could have happened to her? Everyone is suspicious of the Hel-Blar, considering their recent population boom.
This novel is excellent and keeps you bound until the end. If you haven't read the others in the series, it doesn't matter, it still makes sense and is a brilliant book. I would age this book early to mid-teen.
Sarah Filkin (Student)