Review: Half-Blood & My First Giveaway for 2012!

Half-Blood - Jennifer Armentrout

Genre - Young Adult

Released - October 18, 2011

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi--pure bloods--have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals--well, not so much.

Half-bloods only have two options: become trained sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures.

Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:

Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden.

Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden.

And that would kind of suck.

Let’s address the elephant in the room and get it out of the way. Yes, Half-Blood bears a striking resemblance to Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. Did I love the book regardless of the similarities? Absolutely!

Alex is a character very much like Rose Hathaway from VA. She runs away from school due to an unexplained threat. She is a Half-Blood and is looked down in a society run by Pure Bloods. There are dark beings called daimons that are similar to Strigoi. She has a forbidden romance with her older mentor, Aiden. There is a potential love triangle with the introduction of Seth.

Now, let me tell you what I loved about this book. About mid-way the resemblance to Vampire Academy disappears. We are dealing with a completely different world and a different mythology. I loved the introduction of the Apollyon and Solaris story. After that, I kind of guessed what Alex’s secret was so I wasn’t too surprised by it. However, I am eager to know what is going to happen to Alex on her eighteenth birthday and what this all means for her.

The twist about Alex’s mother was brilliant! I did not see that coming and I loved the end scene. I liked the back story about Aiden and the chemistry between Alex and Aiden was amazing! Seth was such an interesting character and I can't wait to learn more about him as well as find out what Lucian has in store for Seth and Alex.

All in all, this was a great book and I flew right through it and wanted to read more. Jennifer Armentrout’s writing style was easy to read and flowed well. The action scenes were done nicely and the emotional scenes were touching. I am curious to know what comes next and will definitely be picking up the sequel!

Recommended: If you enjoyed the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead and love Greek mythology.

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I had the opportunity to interview the lovely Jennifer Armentrout last May and I was so excited for the release of her books. You can check out the interview here. 

So, I want to give one lucky person the chance to read Half-Blood! I will be sending it through Amazon so you need to have a a Kindle or something that allows you to read Kindle books on.

To enter you must:

- Be a follower of this blog

- Leave a comment with your name and email

The giveaway is open internationally and closes on January 18. I will randomly select a winner out of my ice cream bucket.

Good luck everyone!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.