Hearts at Stake

Incredible read!

Anyone who is unsure about this book, just keep reading! When I first started reading it, I wasnt sure about it but the more and more I read it, I fell in love with this series as well as the characters; Lucky aka Lucy, Nicholas, Solange and Kieran!! I just completely love this book.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Just when you thought you were tired of vampire books!

This story line has a lot of things young readers will enjoy. Action, smart wit, and family. It's so good to see the family dynamics play a big roll in this book, especially to see the mother kick butt! One that is real and not too mushy. Best friends Lucy and Solange are great and to get both their perspectives of what is transpiring is a refreshing change to the story line. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to jump in and have a good read. Can't wait for the next book.
Taylor Raven

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Action, romance, humor. . . What could be better?

This book is an entertaininh balance of bloody battles, unforgetable kisses, and lmao humor. I read the first page and was imediatly addicted. Solange is probably the only girl that's not looking forward to her sweet sixteen.why?Because of the proficy. A girl will be born into an ancient family, that girl is to be our queen. Well, Solange is the one that fits the discription. Only, say she doesnt want to. She doesnt. To freaking bad. When she has been hunted since her birth, you would think shed be used to it. Shes not. And that is probably the worst mistake.

Solange will have to make grave decisions in this epic battle for life. But when her life is entangled with her bff Lucy's, life over love? Friends over family? Gramma over me? Find the answers in the everlasting war of love, life, and blood.WARNING: this book cusses.ages 10+

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

vampires

this is a really good book. it's intresting and also it is vampire realated. i wold keep reading and reading it if i could. i cant wait for the other books.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

READ IT

this book is funny, it has action, romance.... if your a you vampire book this is definitely the book you should read.

outstanding!

this book had me hooked from beginng to end. with its inviting characters to it budding romances, it has heart and the since of family bonding, makes eveything seem almost unrealistic. other books are fantasic also. :)

Awesome

LUV+NICKY+%26LUCKY

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

READ the SERIES......AMAZING

Exciting, fighting, ROMANCE.

This series is so awesome, from the first book to the 3rd book, it keeps your interest....and you continue to see the characters in each book, it just tells one story, then picks other characters in the next book and tells their story. I originally read the 3rd book first, and got hooked when I found out there was a series. I can't wait for the 4th book Bleeding Hearts to come out in Nov 2011!!!

Not bad

Intrresting tale being told from standpoint of 2 people.

loved it

this book was great, i was drawn to the charaters and the plot. it was a great read

Interesting Start but lacking in the end

Characters:

There are way to many characters to keep straight in this novel. Solagne's own family is huge. There are 7 protective brothers- of which only one truly stands out among the others. The parents and aunts and uncles seem to blend together. In addition to the direct family there too many enemies to keep straight. The number of suitors, the different types rogue vampires, the vampire hunters, and the current ruling court are so numerous that it is hard to distinguish who the real enemy is. Even among this mass of characters there were four that stood out. I like Lucy (Lucky) a lot. She Solagne's human friend who is immune, for the most part, to the vampire powers. She is fun and humorous and she stands out among the mass of other characters. Nicholas, I also like. He is Solange's only brother who stands out amongst the other 6. He a gorgeous, annoying, protective vampire who can be two things at once- a ferocious warrior and a gentle boyfriend. Solange is okay- though not my favorite character. There is something about her, I can't quite put my finger on it, but I don't like the way Harvey developed her character. The last character worth mentioning is Kieran, the bounty hunter who decides that Solage is worth saving. He is one that you just find intriguing because of his dark conflicted nature due to his grief over the death of his father.

Other than these four characters, there are some minor characters that you can manage to keep straight if you really concentrate.


Plot/Conflict/Theme:

I enjoyed the premise of the the novel itself, however, there was too much going on too quickly to be able to enjoy the novel. The romantic development between Lucy and Nicholas occurred extremely fast with little romantic indications. The same type of quick and dirty development went into the rest of the story. There were attacks and battles left and right, with no clear understanding of who or what the Drake family was actually battling. In the final battle of the book, there were so many changes and attempted plot twists that it was next to impossible to follow. This book moved like the Vampires- so quickly that it was all a blur.

I think that the intention for all of the battles was an attempt to create a action packed novel that never let the reader rest, but instead the author created a confusing jumble of quickly moving vicious vampires and a helpless human battling about their political standing.


Quality of Writing:

The writing was average. I was neither impressed or disappointed in the quality of writing produced by Harvey. The descriptions of the brothers, and the Lucy's family were interesting and well developed, but other than those incidents, there was nothing that caught my attention.


Rating:

Book: L for Lacking

Cover: A for Average

Review taken from my blog: Ink Slinger's Index

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I recommend anyone who loves humor; a little romance and a lot of vampire- give this series a try

I really enjoyed reading this book. It had a different take on vampires than I've read before. There was a good amount of humor that made me laugh out loud and it had a great romance aspect. Hearts at Stake was told in a two person perspective between Solange and Lucy. I'd have to say that I enjoyed Lucy's prospective more. She was witty and fun and the tension between her and Nicholas was perfect. I found myself wanting to skip every other chapter just to read more about Lucy and Nicholas! If there were more of a connection with Solange and Kieran earlier in the book, I would have been more interested in Solange's point of view.

It was interesting to learn the history of how the Drake family came into existence as vampires. Helena is an awesome mother and can totally kick anyone's butt who tries to mess with her family. Solange has 7 great bothers too who will do whatever it takes to protect her.

The plot was interesting, which made for a very engaging read. I loved the humor, the romance and the kick-butt fighting from Lucy and the Drake family!

I think this book is proof of how important blog book giveaways can be. Thanks to winning this book, I now have to read the rest of the series. Without winning this book, I may never have gotten the chance to discover this series by Alyxandra Harvey.

I I really enjoyed reading this book. It had a different take on vampires than I've read before. There was a good amount of humor that made me laugh out loud and it had a great romance aspect. Hearts at Stake was told in a two person perspective between Solange and Lucy. I'd have to say that I enjoyed Lucy's prospective more. She was witty and fun and the tension between her and Nicholas was perfect. I found myself wanting to skip every other chapter just to read more about Lucy and Nicholas! If there were more of a connection with Solange and Kieran earlier in the book, I would have been more interested in Solange's point of view.

It was interesting to learn the history of how the Drake family came into existence as vampires. Helena is an awesome mother and can totally kick anyone's butt who tries to mess with her family. Solange has 7 great bothers too who will do whatever it takes to protect her.

The plot was interesting, which made for a very engaging read. I loved the humor, the romance and the kick-butt fighting from Lucy and the Drake family!

I think this book is proof of how important blog book giveaways can be. Thanks to winning this book, I now have to read the rest of the series. Without winning this book, I may never have gotten the chance to discover this series by Alyxandra Harvey.

I recommend anyone who loves humor; a little romance and a lot of vampire- give this series a try!!

Quick Read Brimming with Romance

Lucy and Solange have been best friends since they were kids despite that Solange's family are vampires and at her upcoming sixteenth birthday she will become one too. But Solange is very different from the vampires of her family and others in the community. She is the very first born vampire that is a female. And there just happens to be a prophecy saying she will become queen. Though Solange wants nothing to do with this the current queen feels very threatened. As her sixteen birthday approaches she must put up with the growing gifts from courters, the overwhelming numbers of admirers that think her uniqueness in enthralling, and seven very overprotective brothers. Oh and the fact that the bloodchange could leave her dead.

The Good: With alternating points of view from Lucy and Solange, Hearts at Stake is a fun, admirable read. Lucy's character is hilarious. She is fun, witty, and clever and with her hippy-parents-philosophy references she is an easy enjoyable character to read. Solange, similarly, is a character that I came to love. She is down-to-earth and strong-willed. She always wants to protect herself and to not be coddled. But with an Edward Cullen-like over protective family it provides a very interesting dynamic. This novel in essence is a upbeat, fairly-quick, mysterious vampire story that kicks butt.

The Bad: This novel, like any good novel, has romance. But it is weird at some places. Its hard to explain but I felt with switching points of view at cliff hanger end-of-chapters left some things - important things - left unsaid. This, overall, isn't a huge deal. For some reason this kind of stuck with me. I personally love different points of view. I think it gives a story dynamic. But that said it should be done eloquently.

Loved it!!!

Solange is the only vampire girl in over nine hundred years. Vampires swarm the Drake estate looking to either court her, kill her or if you believe in the prophecy, kidnap her. Solange is tired of being stuck at her house, not being able to go out ever single moment without one of her annoying brothers tagging along.




She then meet Kieran. A handsome vampire hunter who is out to kill The Drake Family on the bounty.

Kieran is told that is was The Darke Family who killed his father. What he doesn't know is what he was told is a lie.




Lucy, best friend to Solange is human who has grown up around vampires her entire life. She is completely at ease with them. They take care of as if she was one of her own. When things get crazy with the bounty on The Drake Family, with Lucy's family out of town, she too is stuck at the house. Nicholas, one of the Drake brothers, is all of the sudden feeling different toward Lucy.




Lucy notices a change in Nicholas, more attentive towards, protecting her....Lucy also see Nicholas in a different shade of light. She is just not sure what to make of it.




I really enjoyed reading this book. I love that there was two different love stories going on. It was like double the fun, double the pleasure. Watching the love between the fours characters was a great touch. Nicholas and Lucy had great chemistry. The bond between them was something irresistible. Even with Solange craziness of all the vampires coming to her, her falling for Kieran was something nice. Solange was so bent on not dating any of them and not wanting to become queen, that falling for the one who wants to kill you....why not???




The action and humor in the book was another added bonus. The Drake family busted major kick-butt moves in fighting. The humor in the book had me laughing hard.




Alyxandra's Hearts at Stake is one of my favorite books and I can't believe it took me this long to read it. This book is written in romance style. Each Drake finding their loves. I like this. With 9 Drake brothers, there are plenty more novels to come.

Stake me Deeper!!

HI when i started this book, i really wasn't sure if i was going to like it but as I went through the pages i find, it was easy to read, very easy actually, i went through the pages so fast, i was done in two days! i couldn't put the book down! if you are looking for crazy edgy Plots look where else, it was about two good friends and a bit of love story i personally liked it a lot so much that i want to read the second book, i don't know if someone else will find it as good or funny it is definitely juvenile so if you looking for an adult experience again not this one! But all in all i like it a lot i think is worth reading if you want fun and entertaining! maybe it was too short!

Interesting and Refreshing

I found Hearts at Stake to be quite an engaging novel. The characters were easy to get attached to. I loved the double romantic stories between Lucy and Nicholas, and Solange and Kieran. I actually found myself extremely attached to the character of Lucy, who, although she is the only human among the Drakes, is an extremely strong and amusing character. In the story we learn that the Drake family, a highly respected, yet exiled, family has the only female vampire ever born among them, Solange. Solange is said to fulfill a prophecy that frightens the current vampire "queen". Because of this, the Drakes then have to deal with the Helios-Ra, a vampire hunter organization. But no one expected Kieran, one of the hunters would become interested in Solange. Also, one of Solange's seven older (and extremely overprotective) brothers, Nicholas, becomes interested in Lucy (Solange's best friend), whom has never gotten along with Nicholas growing up. I loved the characters more than anything in this story! I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like an interesting vampire story.

It was OK!

This is the first book in The Drake Chronicles. It was an OK book, I liked it but I also felt it could have been so much better.It's a pretty fast paced book,I read it in less than a day. Solange and Lucy are best friends,only that Solange is the first female offspring of an ancient vampire family and Lucy is a human. Solange has to be careful because she's starting to give off a pheromone that makes male vampires want her. And now that's she's about to turn 16 and into a full fledged vampire, the head female vampire Lady Natasha wants her dead so she doesn't fulfill the phophecy and take the throne. Lucy and Solange's older brother Nicholas, have always picked at each other and fought. Now Lucy has new and strange feelings towards him and can't help but think he feels the same way. One night a Helios-Ra agent(vampire hunter),Kieran, tries to kill Solange and a bounty is put up for her death. Her parents are furious and try to get to the bottom of it,but one night when they are gone Solange is called to meet with Lady Natasha. Her and some of her brothers go only to be ambushed later by vampires and rogue Helios-Ra angents. Soon she is freed by Kieran and they are on the run.Lucy and her Solange's family are worried because in two days Solange will be 16 and without the blood of one of her family member she will die. Most people will like this book,especially people who love romance and vampire books.

Be Still This Heart

Gotta say, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was just the right combination of vampire family intrigue, romance and supernatural folklore to keep me interested and wanting more. In fact I'm looking forward to reading the second in the series when it's released in June 2010.

The plot was very straight forward. Given the setting in current day small town USA, there wasn't much in the way of world building necessary here. I will say, however, that the settings felt appropriately dark and dank. There was a richness in tone that portrayed a somewhat ancient vibe without going too far into the past.

Where the story is at it's best is in the history Harvey created for The Drakes. Their past was both intricate and powerful. Even better is that fact that she didn't have to weave in copious amounts of twists and turns that would confuse the reader. It was, in fact, quite straight forward which I liked. Specifically, the mystery was in how the Drakes would overcome the adversity they were faced with as compared to the reader figuring everything out by having to wade through all the minute and unnecessary details of their past.

Most importantly, what it all comes down to is that this was a character driven story. I loved the characters I was supposed to love, I hated those I was supposed to hate, and I loved to hate each and every person I was intended to love to hate. I was rooting for Solange and her best friend Lucy to be successful. I was rooting for their respective pairings to flourish and develop in the ways they were hoping for them to be so. All in all, even though there were some surprises here and there I believe I reacted to this story as the writer intended me to.

To that end the ride towards the final result (which I won't spill here) was filled with fun and exciting twists and turns. It's a quick enjoyable read, particularly for those that like the paranormal.

This book has a great set up for a never ending series.Its wounderful and charming!

We have Salonge who will change at 16 or die and she has 9 brothers.One of her brothers is in love with her best friend Lucy.Lucy will protect her friend at all cost.This book is the book were you learn the characters and fall in love with them,I am sure the next book"Blood Feud" will be lots better.
And the book is not too big,its very easy to read,I finished it in 2 days.I think its real nice Salonge has 9 brothers that love her and want to watch her back,Salonge would be the main character,but I believe Lucy has the biggest roll in this book and the book is really about the whole family being the main characters.
Their is an evil vampire Queen or she thinks she's the queen that wants Salonge killed because Salonge is the rightful Queen by blood.But Salonge never wanted to be queen.Read the Book for the rest!Enjoy!

Fresh and fun new take on vampires

HEARTS AT STAKE, by Alyxandra Harvey, was a fresh and modern retelling of the story of Snow White, but with a *fang*tastic twist. This dual narrator book tells the story of Solage and her change into a vampire along with her best-human-friend, Lucy.

This book was truly a great read. Harvey created a new history of vampires that was interesting and captivating. I liked reading this book with two narrators because they were totally different. Although most of the time I preferred to read Lucy's chapters versus Solage's. Lucy was fiesty, cheeky, and quite enjoyable to read. Plus there was the added benefit of the blooming romance between her and Nicholas. Their passionate outbursts to each other only made their sweet moments more swoon-worthy. Solage was a bit whiney at times and her changing did nothing to improve her unremarkable personality. But I did like the whole damsel-in-distress circumstance with the gorgeous and mysterious Kieran Black.

I highly enjoyed the background that Harvey created for these characters. She was very in-depth, although sometimes too much so. I found myself having to flip back and forth to distinguish the different types of vampires apart. But other than that I liked reading about the Drakes and their ancestry.

This book stands apart from other young-adult vampire books. The new lineage and history of these vampires living together and fighting humans will definitely sink its teeth into you.