Gizmo's Reviews: Review - Blood-Kissed Sky by J.A. London

Monday, January 7, 2013

Review - Blood-Kissed Sky by J.A. London

Blood-Kissed Sky takes place almost a full month after the end of Darkness Before Dawn. If you read DBD you are aware that Dawn Montgomery was bitten by Victor Valentine the new vampire leader of Denver. Dawn figured that she would wake up and be turned into the one thing she hated the most…a Lesser vampire. If you are wondering if Dawn was changed into a vampire, let’s just say that you'll just have to read the book in order to find out. I don’t want to be the spoiler of the surprise.

I actually liked Dawn a lot better in this book than the first one because she jumps right into things while others like Michael or Tegan would have hidden away in fear or backed down. She’s also protective of her friends and doesn’t want to see them hurt like Tegan was in BDB. The new reality facing Dawn is that she knows that she’s not the most favorable person in Denver after the horrific events surrounding her Teen Party thanks to Sin and his minions. She also has a unique connection with Victor via dreams after being bitten by him which leads her to question her own humanity and what it means to her in the long term. What's worse is that Dawn and Michael have grown apart thanks to Dawn's relationship with Victor.

Dawn ends up being sent away to Los Angeles in an effort to find out what they are doing about the Tainted vampires and how Denver can stop Sin from spreading his violent takeover of the country. But, when Dawn, Michael, Tegan, along with vampires Richard and Faith as well as the vampire hunter Ian Hightower arrive in LA, they are thrown for a major setback one that leads to yet another confrontation with Sin and a shocking revelation.

The writing duo of J.A. London has created a pretty straight forward world. The vampires rose up and humans tried, and failed to fight back. In the end, the Vampire Human treaty was put into place where only 20 human cities (like Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Miami) were allowed to stay in existence without the approval of the Old Families. Humans, who live within the massive walls, are required to give up blood to vampires on a regular basis in order to stay alive. Now, with Sin on the loose and new Day Walkers being created at an extraordinary pace, nobody is safe.

Let me finish my review by saying that I’m extremely disappointed with this book but not because of the actual storyline. The story itself was actually OK. Not great, but, OK. No, you see I’m mad at HarperTeen, or whoever released this book without checking first to make sure all the pages were properly labeled and collated correctly! From page 187 through 220, the pages were all over the place. It is as though the 3 blind mice somehow got involved in collating and putting together this book or it was rushed to print before sending out any Advanced Copies. If I were in the authors place, I would demand an apology since I'm about ready to return this book to Book Depository/Amazon for my money back!