Balthazar by Claudia Gray
March 6, 2012 by HarperTeen
Hardcover, 347 Pages
Purchased


Skye is all to familiar with the ghosts and vampires that surrounded her at Evernight Academy, before it burnt down to the ground. For years shes lived with ghosts and had an uncanny ability to sense them. So when she lent a helping hand to Bianca in the last book, she was left with a permanent ability into physic power that can reach into the world of the wraiths and connect her to ones that have passed on. With this new power it also changed Skye's blood, making it a potent powerful drug like magic to a vampire. A chance encounter with an old vampire who bites her makes this fact known to the vampire world and Skye finds herself the desire of a very evil group of blood suckers. With a taste of Skye's blood a vampire is transported (like a powerful hallucination) back to their previous life before turning and however brief the trip it brings back all the feelings of being alive. Needless to say, Skye is viewed as a major intoxicating human who is wanted for power, greed and lust. She's pretty much doomed to a life of slavery or a life of death.

When Skyes best friend Lucas asks Balthazar to keep an eye on her, he easily obliges. Having known each other from Evernight, the two find it easy to be around each other and build a fast friendship. Skye has actually always secretly admired Balthazar's good looks and old fashioned gentleman persona and pretty much falls for him within the first few weeks together. Balthazar becomes her full time body guard and when he discovers that the vampire leading the hunt for her is his sire, the man who claimed his life 400 years ago, the mission becomes personal.

Swept away by powerful memories, attacks around every corner and a soft realization that Skye is slowly becoming more than a friend makes everything crucial to keep her safe. Of course our broody Vamp who has sworn to never have a relationship with a human doesn't fail in his mission to make everything even more difficult as he denies once again what he truly desires.

Balthazar was a fabulous edition and spin-off from the Evernight series, he was always my favorite character from the books {especially Stargazer} and being in his head this time around was tremendous. B is a big ball of emotions, he's almost Edward like only older with his years of struggling against his vampire nature, the tortured I want to be a human again, but different because of his sordid and heartbreaking past, he's unbelievably strong and brave yet has an ancient sadness that pulls at the heartstrings. Only a taste of his life is shown in the previous books, tiny little snippets of a hinted romance and a crazy sister, in this book instead of just a glimpse into his past we get to be there, learning how he was changed, what his sister Charity went through, what he did to her, seeing and feeling the agony of his parents deaths and the death of the girl he loved. We also find out the torture he went through becoming a vampire and loneliness that has made this hundreds of years old vampire-man trapped in a 19 year old body become who he's become.

Grays delicious detail to an already enduring character gave him depth and soul (we wont mention the whole immaturity back to teenage shenanigans thing here) and FINALLY gave him the girl.

A Little Fun:

So I read on Claudia's blog that she wrote parts of Balthazar while listening to the Inception movie score. So I thought it would be fun to reread some of my favorite parts and listen to see if I could see the scene with the music. So I played Inception and it was fun listening as I read about the two getting trapped in a room at an old gas station, the vampires kicking and breaking in through the door, Balthazar crashing through the wall with his body, saving Skye from the evil vamps, they run, he's dragging her, a car flips over to not hit them, the gas station explodes, running again, falling and then Balthazar tastes Skyes blood that's sprayed into the ground and then he's being zapped back to the 1640s as memories flash before his eyes, then zapped back to the street of fire and craziness, then riding on the horses, being chased, being beaten, falling off the cliff, falling into the water, Skye trying to save a drowning Balthazar, the vampires getting closer.....Skye taking off Balthazar's clothes, Balthazar biting into her neck.......Skye running, the wraiths, everything freezing her.......Balthazar going ballistic like bat shit crazy and beating a vampire with a crow bar.......and then the kiss...with the gasps and the thighs and the hands.....I just had a mini-movie explosion in my brain.

Ok so its safe to say this book was a blast and action packed and written with Claudia Gray awesomeness that you can enjoy even without having read the Evernight series. So what if it was a tad cheesy or a bit far-fetched with the use of a hundreds year old immortal falling for an 18 year old, or that Gray did a ton of telling and not showing, I still liked it and I love Balthazar.

Rating

Recommended to mature teens (16-17ish&up) and contains: Violence, blood, gore, torture, gruesome deaths {told not shown} sexuality-including sex scenes, mild language, hinted memories and scenarios such as rape, child abuse and pedophilia.

4/5- YA-Vampires