When friends stop trusting each other, Darkness is there to fan the flames….
Things have turned black at the House of Night. Zoey Redbird’s soul has shattered. With everything she’s ever stood for falling apart, and a broken heart making her want to stay in the Otherworld forever, Zoey’s fading fast. It’s seeming more and more doubtful that she will be able pull herself back together in time to rejoin her friends and set the world to rights. As the only living person who can reach her, Stark must find a way to get to her. But how? He will have to die to do so, the Vampyre High Council stipulates. And then Zoey will give up for sure. There are only 7 days left…
Enter BFF Stevie Rae. She wants to help Z but she has massive problems of her own. The rogue Red Fledglings are acting up, and this time not even Stevie Rae can protect them from the consequences. Her kinda boyfriend, Dallas, is sweet but too nosy for his own good. The truth is, Stevie Rae’s hiding a secret that might be the key to getting Zoey home but also threatens to explode her whole world.
In the middle of the whole mess is Aphrodite: ex-Fledgling, trust-fund baby, total hag from Hell (and proud of it). She’s always been blessed (if you could call it that) with visions that can reveal the future, but now it seems Nyx has decided to speak through her with the goddess’s own voice, whether she wants it or not. Aphrodite’s loyalty can swing a lot of different ways, but right now Zoey’s fate hangs in the balance.
Three girls… playing with fire… if they don’t watch out, everyone will get Burned.
Once again I jumped into the world of the House of Night and it’s unique set of tattooed vampires. Burned picks up right where we left everyone from the last book, Stevie Rae is recovering from her burns from being on top of the roof and Zoey’s soul has shattered with the death of her human consort Heath. Because it has been a little while for me since I read the last book in the series it did take me a little bit to feel comfortable with everyone again, but because of the nice smooth building writing style of the book it did not take long.
I can not say how much I enjoy this series of books, for every twist that a story takes where I know the answer there is another one in which I don’t. We get to meet another collection of characters in Burned when Stark takes the empty body of Zoey to The Isle of Women, an island said to be off Scotland with a Warrior Queen at it’s head. We are than also introduced to an ancient religion power within this world of two bulls The Black Bull of good and The White Bull of evil. Think that is backwards? Yeah I did to until I read the reasoning given and then it all made perfect sense.
Aphrodite is her usual smart ass self, and yet even while doing that she does good and she is growing on me as a character. There is goodness in her and it is nice to see her maturing into the person that her warrior Darius seems to think she can be. There are still plenty of fun pop culture references that keep the book fresh (love me some True Blood references!) and over all it really is just an enjoyable fast paced read. Of course the ending is a cliff hanger and Kalona the bad guy is still out there along with Neferet, but it is a series after all. I highly recommend this one!
My Gemstone Rating:
