Vampires of Manhattan: The New Blue Bloods Coven

by Melissa de la Cruz

Series: Book #1 The Vampires of Manhattan
ISBN: 9781401324711
Publisher: Hyperion Books
Publication Date: September 1st 2014
Number of Pages: 240
Source: Local Library
Goodreads
I do not like the summary posted on Goodreads, so instead I linked the book's Goodreads page above and below I am copying what is written on the book jacket:

In a city that never sleeps, an evil has awakened...

It's been ten years since the Blue Bloods vampires vanquished Lucifer, and the Coven has enjoyed relative peace and prosperity under their ardent new leader, Oliver Hazard-Perry.

That is, until Hell's Bells start ringing.

Pentagrams are appearing all over New York City and Oliver can't help but fear their ominous presence. These harbingers of doom are bringing back memories of the Great War, but this time, no one is letting the warning signs go unnoticed.

Then a human teenager is found murdered in the subway tunnels under the city with a pentagram drawn in blood above her body, and the vampire secret police suspect the unthinkable: she was killed by one of their own, a horrifying breach of their code. Venator Ara Scott believes this could only point to a conspiracy designed to unravel the victory they fought so hard to win, and she'll do anything to stop it.

Meanwhile, Mimi Martin is learning the hard way that Hell doesn't necessarily make for a hot marriage. After leaving her husband behind to trade fire and brimstone for Chardonnay and Broadway, she's finding that life without Kingsley might be its own kind of inferno. Plus, there's that incessant ringing in her ears...

And Oliver is not willing to let anything get in the way of being officially crowned Regis at the newly revived Four Hundred Ball. This is his chance to give himself fully to the community he's sworn to protect, and to officially devote himself to his human familiar, Finn Chase. Perception, though, does not always lead to reality.

Living between Heaven and Hell, love and death, life and blood...

Welcome to the new Blue Bloods Coven.

My Rating:

That summary is practically as long as the book - just kidding! But at 250 pages, this is a very fast read! I am classifying it as New Adult, though my library has seen fit to place it in our YA collection. This is for older and more mature teens only in my opinion.

Thought this series was over? How could we think that? There are already two spin-offs to this world, it gets confusing a bit. We have the witches (The Beauchamp Family series) and the wolves (Wolf Pact). So let's just continue on shall we?

Oliver has become the Regent of the Coven, Schuyler & Jack have cut themselves off from everyone to live life as viticulturists (aka vineyard owners) and Mimi is *GASP* working! 

"Sometimes, Oliver also wondered how much he had lost when he gained his immortality. His sense of humor, for one; he hadn't laughed in a long time. He never used to take anything seriously - money and position least of all. But now he was Regent of the Coven, and he had no time for childish games, and there was little trace of the sarcastic teenager he had been." - Vampires of Manhattan, 13

We are introduced to a new character, Ara Scott, and see the development of other characters we know from the previous series. There are multiple points of view (which worked for this book) and we also have the plot split into "present" and "five weeks earlier."

This was an intriguing story, I liked the inventiveness of this new "evil plot" and how it came about. Completely blown away by the revealing of the "bad guy" - he/she seemed so sweet!

All of our "main" known characters from the previous series (Oliver, Mimi...) are thirty years old and it is a little odd to read. Ara is *I think* 24 years old, so it is a little better - but yeah, characters age-wise, this book can't be regarded as a teen novel. The storyline deals with teenagers dying, so this is the connection to the YA world.

"Vampires of Manhattan is a continuation but also a new beginning. New coven. New rules. New danger. Same fabulous city of New York." - Melissa de la Cruz 

 If you are eager to continue the Blue Bloods story, this book is for you. There is sexual content and some graphic details surrounding some of the bloody deaths. The main characters are in their mid-20s to 30s. It is a fast-paced read without a whole lot of depth.

There will be a sequel, as the ending is a cliff-hanger!

Deep Blue

by Jennifer Donnelly

Series: Book #1 Waterfire Saga
ISBN: 9781423133162
Publisher: Disney Press
Publication Date: May 6th 2014
Number of Pages: 320
Source: Local Library
Goodreads Summary: Deep in the ocean, in a world not so different from our own, live the merpeople. Their communities are spread throughout the oceans, seas, and freshwaters all over the globe.

When Serafina, a mermaid of the Mediterranean Sea, awakens on the morning of her betrothal, her biggest worry should be winning the love of handsome Prince Mahdi. And yet Sera finds herself haunted by strange dreams that foretell the return of an ancient evil. Her dark premonitions are confirmed when an assassin's arrow poisons Sera's mother. Now, Serafina must embark on a quest to find the assassin's master and prevent a war between the Mer nations. Led only by her shadowy dreams, Sera searches for five other mermaid heroines who are scattered across the six seas. Together, they will form an unbreakable bond of sisterhood and uncover a conspiracy that threatens their world's very existence.

My Rating:

This is the first book in a new series and it fell short of my expectations. We have what seems to be varying POVs through the story but they sometimes vary within the same chapter and when this happened, it startled me and got me out of the story. 


Our two "main" characters are princesses, Serafina & Neela. We start our story out on the day of Serafina's Dokimí:

"Greek word for trial; a ceremony in which the heir to the Miromaran throne has to prove that she is a true descendant of Merrow by spilling blood for Alítheia, the sea spider. She must then songcast, make her betrothal vows, and swear to one day give the realm a daughter." - Deep Blue, 332

Off the bat, you will notice there are MANY characters to keep straight. We have seven "realms" or kingdoms, we also have bandits and other tribes. There is also a lot of vocab words, so many in fact that the author provides a glossary at the back! 


One of these vocab words, Bloodsong, made me laugh since it was eerily similar to how memories are extracted in Harry Potter! 


This is a nice fantasy adventure that features a strong (albeit a self-doubting) female character.

"She had to do it. She had to put her pain and loss aside and exchange vows with a merman she couldn't even bear to look at, in order to save her people from a war. That's what her mother would do, and that's what she would do, too. I always disappoint her, Serafina thought, but tonight I won't. Tonight, I'll make her proud."  - Deep Blue, 77

Her kingdom is ruled by a woman (a Regina, which is Italian for Queen) and the man pretty much is there for looks, 

"There was no re, or king, in Miromara. The regina was the highest authority. Males could be princes of the blood if they were sons of a regina, or prince consorts if they married one." - Deep Blue, 79

Serafina's mother, Isabella, is a strong role model and I liked this reversal of roles between women and men. I can see Serafina growing into herself as the books progress. I also appreciated the emphasis more on the girls' friendship rather than boys and love interests. Yeah, there is a little bit of it (I mean Serafine was going to be betrothed!) but it is not the point of this story. 


The main reason this book didn't receive more stars is the fact that I don't think we progressed the story much. There are still many questions to be answered and the girls' quest just began at the end. I feel like there could have been much more. 


I am going to read the next book, Rogue Wave, but it isn't due out until January 2015. This series definitely has potential and I am curious to see if we stick with Neela and Serafina's POV or if we will "hear" from some of the other girls in the group. (The summary given does sound like we will still focus on them). I want to hear more of the other girls backgrounds and I need to know Astrid's secret! 

Grasshopper Jungle

by Andrew Smith

ISBN: 9780525426035

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Publication Date: February 11th 2014
Number of Pages: 388
Source: Local Library
Goodreads Summary: Sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba interweaves the story of his Polish legacy with the story of how he and his best friend , Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in small-town Iowa.

To make matters worse, Austin's hormones are totally oblivious; they don't care that the world is in utter chaos: Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann, but remains confused about his sexual orientation. He's stewing in a self-professed constant state of maximum horniness, directed at both Robby and Shann. Ultimately, it's up to Austin to save the world and propagate the species in this sci-fright journey of survival, sex, and the complex realities of the human condition.

My Rating: 

*Warning* I am classifying this book as New Adult due to the explicit and rampant sexual references (as you see in the summary of this book above). There is also graphic violence portrayed.

The setting is Ealing, Iowa - an extremely small town where a big corporation that provided most jobs for the community has shut down after the demise of its CEO/founder.

Our main character is Austin. He is extremely annoying and really got on my nerves. First off, every other thought he has is sexual. I was never a teenage boy, so I have no idea how accurate this portrayal is. As I warned, be prepared. A lot of these thoughts revolve around his mixed feelings towards his girlfriend (Shannon) and his gay best friend (Robby). I appreciate the introduction of the idea of bi-sexualism in YA literature, though I was a little put off by the fact that Austin didn't want to label his feelings as such.

I DID NOT like the way that women were portrayed in this book. Again, it may be because our main character is a teenage boy but STILL. There are absolutely no good female characters in this book. Austin's & Robby's mothers both take drugs to deal with their lives, Austin's girlfriend has no depth (all we hear is how much Austin wants her body), and the female grasshopper is used as a reproduction carrier. This does not seem fair to girls and I did not approve. 

Another problem I had with not only Austin, but with the author's way of writing is the "historian." Austin is apparently documenting and writing down in his journals all of the events that happened for future generations. This is okay with me (the aspect of recording these incidents). What I did not like was how we have Austin's thoughts and then the chapters switch and we are witnesses to scenes that are happening elsewhere. How does Austin know about those events to record them?! He also has this really vexing trait of going off on long tangents about his ancestors. I have no idea how this played into the book or helped further this plot? We do have a reveal towards the end of the book but I don't think we needed such an intensive back-story to understand the twist.

"Even when I tried to tell everything that happened, I knew my accounts were ultimately nothing more than an abbreviation. It's not that I neglected to write details...But no historian could ever put everything that happened in a book. The book would be as big as the universe, and it would take multiple countless lifetimes to read." - Grasshopper Jungle, 67

Now for the juicy stuff that I really liked! Shannon's stepfather, Johnny, owns a thrift shop where in his office he stores weird things that his brother (that corporation CEO) left him after his death. This is where Austin & Robby discover something disturbing: 

"The plaque read:

MCKEON INDUSTRIES 1969CONTAINED MI PLAGUE STRAIN 412E

Inside the globe was a festering universe...The black thing inside the globe pulsed and twitched like a beating heart. It seemed to become more animated the longer we stared at it. It was almost like a gelatinous cauliflower. Here and there on its velvet surface, a mound would rise up, like a mosquito bite, a black pimple, and then burst open at its peak." - Grasshopper Jungle, 55-56

This globe is the source of our exciting science fiction element - the creation of giant, man-eating bugs! We have 7 "victims" that turn and start wrecking havoc on this small community very quickly.

"...we watched as a six-legged bug the size of a small man crawled like some kind of windup mechanized toy out of the hollowed remains of Hungry Jack. It wiped itself clean with four of its appendages, bringing its spiny hands up to its mandibles, licking itself clean and dry with crackling, smacking bug-mouth sounds. The thing's head was triangular. It looked like a praying mantis, only it was as tall as we were." - Grasshopper Jungle, 128 

This is what an actual praying mantis looks like:

Photo courtesy of National Geographic

These insects portrayed in Smith's novel do closely resemble giant praying mantis, as this description from the National Geographic website accurately describes the behaviors of the bugs in this book: "...the insects will also eat others of their own kind. The most famous example of this is the notorious mating behavior of the adult female, who sometimes eats her mate just after—or even during—mating. Yet this behavior seems not to deter males from reproduction." Yet another instance of the sexual references. These bugs (only one of whom is a female) just go around eating people and taking turns reproducing. 

I did like the second half of this story - the discoveries Austin and his two pals make and the twists in the story are disturbingly weird but I liked it. The ending was a little far-fetched for me but oh well.

So, I couldn't really say I liked the book but it was a little bit above being "okay." Thus my 2.5 star rating. Not sure who this book is going to appeal to - possibly boys and probably anyone who likes gross science fiction stuff. The story-telling moves a little bit slow for the reluctant reader and the overwhelming sexual references might turn people away.