This is one of those reviews that is very hard to write without HUGE spoilers. So you’re just going to have to trust me – it’s worth it.

However, I’ve come to a quite dramatic conclusion upon finishing this book. Richelle Mead is the devil incarnate! Oh, the pain, the suffering, the torture that I’ve gone through reading her Vampire Academy series and Blood Promise only offers more of the same.

I was in the (un)fortunate position of having Blood Promise sitting there waiting for me to joyously launch into after the dramatic ending of Shadow Kiss. A far majority of Blood Promise is actually background story. We get to meet Dimitri’s family and spend quite a bit of time with them, getting to know them better.  Then there is the mysterious Abe, Moroi godfather look-a-like, Sydney, the strange Alchemist and Avery, the new girl taking Roses place.  So many side stories I was starting to wonder if we were completely changing directions at one stage.

Then WAM, we’re back in the action. Rose is fighting, Lissa is fighting, Adrian is fighting... it’s just full on.  All the threads of the story are tightly woven together and the world just suddenly makes sense! I think it’s one of the most wonderful aspects of all Richelle Meads writing – her wonderful ability to really blind side! You’re happily travelling along the river of her story, sure there’s a couple of rapids, the odd log in the water, but it’s that 200m waterfall that suddenly arrives that gets you every time!

I did find I was a little distracted with the Dimitri thing, but that’s just been my issue through the whole series - that teenage-teacher relationship thing just wigs me out a little (for all that I can understand the fantasy from the teen perspective, and remember the odd crush myself).  My other negative , I found the side-line plots a little long winded. Yes, interesting. Yes, they flowed into the story and pulled it all together, but at the time reading I just found them a little too distracting. The middle of Blood Promise is in some ways a completely different story than we’ve been reading in the rest of the series.

 If you’ve read the previous three books in the Vampire Academy series, you will adore this – and it will drive you completely insane, you’ll be cursing Richelle’s name too! If you haven’t yet embarked on this great teen paranormal series – you really must, but please, start with book one, it’s most certainly a series best read in order and one that only gets better as the characters get older (and less teen angsty).

So far I can happily say that I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Richelle Mead – teen and adult both. She really is quite an exceptional story teller.

Book 5 in this series “Spirit Bound” is out in 2010, I have a ‘feeling’ this is going to be huge.