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The House of Night Series

books series by P.C and Kristin Cast

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These Vamps don't Shimmer, they have cool Tattoos!

Sep 6, 2009

by White_Tigress

Rating:

I'm going to go crazy waiting for the sixth book in the House of Night series, written by mother and daughter team P.C and Kristin Cast. Having bought all five of the currently avaliable books in the last week and a half, and also having read them all in the last week and a half, I find myself obssessed with this intricate vampire series above all others! Twilighters and lovers of Vampire Academy, rush down to your local book shop and get these NOW!!! I promise you won't regret it!

sixteen year old Zoey Montgomery lives what most people would call a fairly normal life. She has an almost-boyfriend, who she broke up with because of his bad drinking habits, a best friend who wants her boyfriend for herself, a step father who seems to think she's the devil incarnate, and a major geometry test on Friday that she hasn't studied for.
Then the Tracker arrives, and Marks Zoey as a Vampyre fledgling. She is required to move into the Tulsa House of Night by the end of the day, or she won't survive. Things are looking up!

Zoey wants nothing more than to fit in, something she's never really done, so she desperately wants to fit in at the House of Night. On the outside, the only person Zoey can trust is her Cherokee grandmother, Sylvia Redbird, who has alway taught her the ways of her people.
Unfortunately, fitting in isn't something that Zoey is going to be able to acomplish. When her parents try to stop her from leaving for the House of Night, she runs away and goes to her Grandmother's lavender farm. It's here where things start to get interesting,
Upon her arrival at the House of Night, Zoey changes her name to Zoey Redbird, but she's in for a huge surprise. Her Mark is different to what it was just a few scant hours earlier. Instead of the usual sapphire blue cresent moon that fledglings have, her Mark is filled out, different to the other.
At the House of Night, Zoey feels like she belongs. She might be different, but she's not alone, and she has found truly loyal friends who will help her through anything that comes their way. Zoey knows that her life as a vampyre will be better, that is if she survives the Change from fledgling to vampyre.

What is a Mark? it is a tattoo that adorns the vampyres. When a fledgling is Marked, they sport the aforementioned blue crescent moon on their foreheads, which grows and flourishes after a fledgling successfully makes the Change. If your body rejects the change. You die. Permantly. Or so Zoey thinks... and lets not even get started on the boys at this school...

This series as the best group dynamic I've seen in main characters. The interaction between Zoey and her four friends, and even their enemies, is brilliant. It is impossible to pick a favourite character in this series, since all of them are so wonderfully written that you simply have to adore them all.
Stevie Rae has what the authors call an 'Okie' accent, and wears cowboy boots with her school uniform. Erin and Shaunee look nothing alike and are from completely different states, yet are somehow so similar that they earned the nickname "The Twins", and Damien is the resident gay boy, with a large vocab and a kind heart. They are all totally lovable and they totally make this series what it is! And there's cats. Lots and lots of cats.

Another fantastic thing about this book is that it incorporates Cherokee wisdom and magic in with all the vampyre stuff, which is a new and fabulous take on a recently quite over exploited genre. towards later books the Cherokee side of Zoey becomes more and more important and integral to the storyline and the hardships Zoey has to face as her powers and her Mark begin to further set her apart from the other fledglings.
This book also has some genuinely dark stuff in it, which is a pleasant change from vampyre books that try to be dark and fall dismally short of their goal. Admittedly, stories like Vampire Academy are not designed to be truly dark and scary, and while House of Night is not truly frightening on a Bram Stoker level, there is some pretty dark and gastly stuff going down.

If you don't try and get your hands on this series, you are missing out on a real gem. I cannot stress enough just how masterful the House of Night truly is, so you'd best get out there and see for yourself!
Titles in the series are Marked, Betrayed, Chosen, Untamed and Hunted, with book six, Tempted to be released in late October!

Seriously, this series just keeps getting better and better! Having just completed the eighth book of this series, Awakened, I have a new appreciation for the authors and their ability to create characters that are so real they almost feel like a part of your own family. As things in this series get darker and darker, and the good guys lose more and more people to the Darkness, it gets harder and harder to say goodbye to characters that you've loved for 7 or 8 books! Awakened sees the death of one of the most beautiful supporting characters, it is was completely impossible not to cry over it for hours afterward, which simply proves how well P.C and Kristin Cast write their characters. Big props to them for writing such amazing characters!

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More The House of Night Series reviews

Quick Tip by vampire_eyez. October 12, 2010

posted in Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy

A Quick Tip by vampire_eyez

this is one of the best vampire series to come out in a while, its very non-traditional and suprisingly well written and well researched for a young adult series.

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