great fun with de la cruz' young adult vampire fiction: revelations and the van alen legacy

In Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy, we return to Melissa de la Cruz' world of the “Blue Bloods”. Think Gossip Girl with vampires and you'd be just about right.

Of course, there's the dorky girl – old name family fallen on bad times – and the ice princess – snooty blonde with a weird thing for her twin brother – so these books are entirely too fluffy to be read.
In fact, although de la Cruz' books are nominally Young Adult fiction, they're way more raunchy and interesting than those horrible Twilight things. Schuyler Van Alen, Mimi Force and her twin Jack and other various teens are punchy, re-born vampires with long memories, strong sex drives and entrenched rivalries.
The only odd thing is that they're expected to graduate from high school.
After the first two books – Blue Bloods and Masquerade – Schuyler has discovered that she's actually a “half blood” vampire and her true love Jack is Mimi's soul mate. Which is a bit of a problem since Jack and Schuyler are having problems keeping their hands off each other.
Then there's the Silver Bloods – other vampires who live on vampire blood and basically turn evil. Oh, they're Satan's minions too. Although Satan is really Lucifer (as in “bearer of light”) and now he appears to have broken free of his prison.
On top of this, Schuyler's newly rediscovered Grandfather has been taken away from her – she has to live with her arch nemesis Mimi (no, not entirely sure how that happened but apparently Mimi's dad is Schuyler's uncle!) and there's something wrong with her former friend Dylan (who may be a Silver Blood) and her best mate Oliver (who she kind of turned into her familiar).
Whew! So, Schuyler's got to save herself, her friends and the world of the Blue Bloods while trying to graduate and make-out with Jack. Oh, and she's become a top fashion model too.
These are great, fun books. The stories are preposterous but the characters are relatively realistic. The teen angst of new love, coupled with realising you really ARE different from everybody else, explains why de la Cruz' has become so popular.
If you have concerns about your “young adults” having sex and thinking about biting people, these books aren't for you. But if you want to give them something fun to read that will resonate with them and perhaps put them off having sex and/or biting people, then the Blue Bloods series is a winner.
Apparently there's another book just around the corner, Misguided Angels, and The Repository – kind of like a Blue Blood history – will be out in June.

Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz are published by Atom, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group and are available from good book stores and online.

Read my review of the first two books; Blue Bloods and Masquerade.

gossip girl with vampires

Niki Bruce reviews a couple of new young adult vampire novels and discovers they're not too bad.

You knew it had to happen eventually; what with the influx of non-violent, glittering vampires of the Twilight genre, it was bound to happen.
Surprisingly though, Melissa de la Cruz' New York-based series featuring socialites as vampires – Blue Bloods (of course) – isn't that bad. The first in the series, eponymously entitled Blue Bloods and the second, Masquerade, are aimed at young adult readers, as are most vampire themed novels at the moment.
The first book introduces readers to Schuyler Van Alen, who is 15 years old, lives in a rundown, rambling old mansion and goes to a posh prep school, where she doesn't fit in as she's not blonde, busty, rich or out doing things girls her ages shouldn't really be doing. Schuyler has one real friend, a boy called Oliver, a mother in a coma, a dead father and frosty grandmother.
Naturally she's also got a crush on the hottest boy in school – who doesn't give her the time of day – and whose queen bee twin sister goes out of her way to may
ke life hard for Schuyler.
The first half of the book sets up the premise of this exclusive lifestyle with lots of references to fashion labels, bad behaviour and teenage angst – actually kind of boring unless you're a fifteen year old girl, I suppose. The second half, however, is were the supernatural steps in and the vampire motiff takes off.
Like most to the vampires being written about (and turned into film) these days, de la Cruz' vamp lack most of the drawbacks of the traditional form – this lot can endure sunlight (they head to the Caribbean for holidays), eat garlic, wear silver, drink, have sex and procreate. Although the do need blood – unlike the emasculated Twilight version – and enjoy having a number of human 'familiars' who donate. The Blue Bloods also run the local Blood Bank charity which is quietly ironic.
Schuyler discovers she's one of these 'blue bloods' but while coming to terms with that also discovers that this doesn't make her part of the cool group either – she's actually a 'half-blood'; her father was human. So, still looked down upon by her arch-enemy, Mimi Force, Schuyler can't really see any benefit to her new state. And on top of that, someone is going around killing the scions of the Blue Bloods.
There is a lot more background and explanation in Blue Bloods, explaining how these vampires came to be and why they are in America; Masquerade expands upon the mythology with details about the group's history and why they are seemingly both 'young' and yet centuries old. It's a bit complicated but de la Cruz makes it relatively believeable.
Blue Bloods and Masquerade are the first two novels of the series – de la Cruz has already got two more planned and advertised on the inside-front covers of the books; Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy. Assuming the tween set enjoys them as much as I did, the series is sure to take off.
The books are certainly not heavy reading; nor would they be defined as literature. They are, however, well-written for their genre and the character of Schuyler is feisty, punky and vulnerable. She's a much better role model for young girls than the insipid, vapid, boy-obsessed Bella (have you worked out yet that I can't stand the Twilight series?).

Blue Bloods and Masquerade are written by Melissa de la Cruz and published by Atom. These two books are available from good book stores in Singapore and the next three in the series are available online from Amazon US.