Blood Coven Books

As it's been pointed out by my fabulous friend Erin (check out her blog here), I've been doing quite a bit of YA reading recently. This is mostly because YA novels are quick reads, and for the last few months, my attention span has been similar to that of a lawn gnome. As in, nonexistent. Anyway, I've been working my way through the Blood Coven series by Mari Mancusi, and I would definitely recommend it.


Mancusi definitely has a gift for campy horror, and her tone kind of reminds me of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. Sunny's quest to find the Holy Grail after she gets vamped (due to a case of mistaken identity - the vampire in question was supposed to bite her twin sister) is sweet, funny and slightly awkward, in a good way. The characters are easy to relate to, and it's an original take on vampiric politics, as opposed to the same old "council that has rules and regulations with the oldest vampires who take out the youngest ones." Do I even have to say who I'm insulting there? I think not.




I may have liked Stake That even more than I liked Boys That Bite. Rayne is a lot more interesting to me as a character. I'm not sure why I like her more than Sunny (yup, their names are Sunshine and Rayne, haha) but it could have something to do with the fact that she has more of an attitude problem and definitely doesn't like being told what to do...I don't know anyone like that :) And she has a way more kick ass boyfriend. Not that the Holy Grail search wasn't romantic, but Jareth's origins are so complex and intriguing. And did we notice that Jareth never accidentally bites the wrong girl?



Girls that Growl was immensely entertaining. Only the goth girl would have an undercover assignment to become a cheerleader and save her arch nemesis/captain of the football team. Let's just talk about creative problem solving strategies for a sec. Rayne's technique for landing a spot on the team was very humorous, especially after she spent, oh, say, 10 whole minutes practicing and fell on her face during her try out. And I loved the development of friendships, especially Cait and Rayne's, and Mandy's admission about why she and Rayne parted ways years ago. The only thing that bothered me about the book was the Rayne/Jareth interaction. If I wanted to list to non-stop bickering, I would watch Jon and Kate Plus 8 or Dr. 90210. It definitely annoyed me a little. But other than that, I really enjoyed it.

The 4th book comes out in January...I'm not very good at this whole waiting patiently thing, but I'm trying, and luckily there are a whole bunch of other exciting things coming out in the meantime *cough Vampire Academy Book 4 cough* so hopefully it will curb my YA appetite until then. It's back to Sunny's POV, and I'm hoping it's just as good as the others.

Also, FYI, if you're interested, Barnes and Noble ordered a whole bunch of these books, so you should definitely pick them up and support Mari! Or, you know, the lib's good too.