Bloodspell by Amalie Howard

Title/Author: Bloodspell (Bloodspell #1) by Amalie Howard
Publisher/Date published: Langdon Street Press, May 27th 2011
How I got this book: received it from the publisher as an egalley

Goodreads summary: "The spell was simple...
Cruentus Protectum (Defend the Blood)
But what do you do if your blood is your enemy?
Victoria Warrick has always known she was different. An outcast at school, she is no stranger to adversity. But when she receives an old journal for her seventeenth birthday, nothing prepares her for the dark secrets it holds -- much less one that reveals she's a witch with unimaginable power.
What's more, when she meets the dazzling but enigmatic Christian Devereux, she has no idea how much her life is about to change. Enemies will hunt her. Friends will turn on her. The terrible curse that makes her blood run black will stop at nothing to control her. And Christian has a sinister secret of his own...
Without knowing whom to trust, can Victoria survive her blood's deadly desires? Or will she lose everything, including herself?"

Ok, so this book and I struggled with each other. And I mean, we REALLY struggled. Complete with hissing and raising of fur and all that. I'd been looking forward to reading this one and I regret saying it turned out not to be my kind of book.

The concept is absolutely fascinating, I mean, the magic being infused in your blood and actually turning it black instead of the more natural red color and it having a will of its own, FASCINATING! I'm just disappointed at the actual story.

I know you can be a natural at something, I do, but when generations and generations of witches before you have failed to control this dangerous magic in your blood, you can't tell me you learn to master it in a heartbeat. And almost killing and then saving your immortal boyfriend doesn't count as losing control. And I know Victoria had her familiar help her a bit with the training and all, but there's not a lot going on there or it's not shown in the book at least. And I like it when it's shown.

Also, I had a hard time getting into the Twilight-esque romance. I really don't like comparing anything to Twilight, cause it leaves a bad taste, but a 180 year old vampire falling in love with a 17 year old girl and her blood being almost irresistible to him and all? Yeah, kinda reminded me of it.

And all the teenagers in this book be CRAZY! Seriously. Victoria turns a boy down, he decides to try and kill her. And **SPOILER** he turns out to be a warlock as well****. And there's the whole thing with the girl who's in love with said boy and also goes psycho. Sometimes I didn't know if I was reading about a high school or a mental institution.

I did really like the whole history of Victoria's powers and it would have been really interesting to find out more about what exactly happened to her great-great-great-great grandmother.

But in the end the characters annoyed me too much and I was going WTF??? a bit too often, this book just wasn't for me.
My rating: 1 star