Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Published: 18th May 2010
Series: Vampire Academy #5
Source: Own Copy
Salvation has its price.
The words stunned Adrian for a moment, but he kept going. "You're lying. What you're describing is impossible. There's no way to save a Strigoi. When they're gone, they're gone. They're dead. Undead. Forever."
Robert's next words weren't directed at Adrian. They were spoken to me. "That which is dead doesn't always stay dead...."
After a long and heartbreaking journey to Dimitri’s birthplace in Siberia, Rose Hathaway has finally returned to St. Vladimir’s—and to her best friend, Lissa Dragomir. It's graduation, and the girls can’t wait for their real lives outside of the Academy’s cold iron gates to finally begin. But even with the intrigue and excitement of court life looming, Rose’s heart still aches for Dimitri. He's out there, somewhere.
She failed to kill him when she had the chance, and now her worst fears are about to come true. Dimitri has tasted her blood, and she knows in her heart that he is hunting her. And if Rose won't join him, he won't rest until he's silenced her...forever.
But Rose can't forget what she learned on her journey—whispers of a magic too impossible and terrifying to comprehend. A magic nextricably tied to Lissa that could hold the answer to all of Rose's prayers, but not without devastating consequences. Now Rose will have to decide what—and who—matters most to her. In the end, is true love really worth the price?
Fall in love with Rose and Dimitri all over again in Spirit Bound, the eagerly awaited fifth novel in Richelle Mead's enthralling Vampire Academy series. - From Goodreads
May contain spoilers from earlier books in the series:
This books was jam packed with action from the first to last page, so much good stuff happens. At the end of the previous book Rose failed to kill Dimitri, as we know when he sent her back her stake, and Rose returned to school. This should feel familiar to us, having Rose back at school, but after everything that has happened to her recently she seems to have lost a little bit of her spark. After Rose passes her Guardian test with flying colours (they have to invent new things to test her on, she is that good!) her, Lissa, Adrian and Christian head to court with school behind them. There they begin to discover things that the shouldn't and life changes drastically for at least one of them.
Using some of the information that Rose found on her journey to find Dimitri in the last book, Rose and Lissa begin to discuss the possibility of using spirit to help those who have been turned into stigoli. Soon the pieces of the puzzle fall into place and before we know it Victor is being dragged back into the story along with his crazy brother and an angry Dimitri. Meanwhile at court we see the vampire politics in full swing while Lissa tries to navigate her way through the issues that come with her being the only surviving member of her family.
Rose feels like a completely different character in this book than at the start of this series. We can really see the transition between the reckless and, in comparison, carefree Rose from the first book and the more responsible and cautious Rose. I also loved watching her relationship with Adrian in this book. I think about half way through this book I became a solid member of Team Adrian. Within this story each of the characters had a significant part to play, and I always like it when everyone weaves into the story to compliment it and add in their own individual element.
Rose was not the only character to show a completely different side to them. I felt that the Lissa we saw in this book was far less annoying and actually brought something to the Lissa-Rose relationship. There is the possibility that I was just feeling forgiving when I read this book but I think that Lissa was becoming her own woman far less needy and dependent on Rose to think of all the ideas and protect her. Don't get me wrong, I still found her irritating, just far less so!
This book was faced paced and crammed from the first to the last page with drama, drama, drama!! This is good as after reading this book you could see that the last book was a much slower pace. I thought the story was exciting and the final cliffhanger left me feeling like I had been punched in the stomach (which someone had warned me about!) and moving right on to the final instalment!! A great series that I will be sad to finish!
