[Books] Golden Lily (Bloodlines #2) by Richelle Mead

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Started on: December 1, 2012

Finished on: December 26, 2012

Synopsis

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.

Sydney would love to go to college, but instead, she’s been sent into hiding at a posh boarding school in Palm Springs, California–tasked with protecting Moroi princess Jill Dragomir from assassins who want to throw the Moroi court into civil war. Formerly in disgrace, Sydney is now praised for her loyalty and obedience, and held up as the model of an exemplary Alchemist.

But the closer she grows to Jill, Eddie, and especially Adrian, the more she finds herself questioning her age–old Alchemist beliefs, her idea of family, and the sense of what it means to truly belong. Her world becomes even more complicated when magical experiments show Sydney may hold the key to prevent becoming Strigoi—the fiercest vampires, the ones who don’t die. But it’s her fear of being just that—special, magical, powerful—that scares her more than anything. Equally daunting is her new romance with Brayden, a cute, brainy guy who seems to be her match in every way. Yet, as perfect as he seems, Sydney finds herself being drawn to someone else—someone forbidden to her.

When a shocking secret threatens to tear the vampire world apart, Sydney’s loyalties are suddenly tested more than ever before. She wonders how she's supposed to strike a balance between the principles and dogmas she's been taught, and what her instincts are now telling her.

Should she trust the Alchemists—or her heart?

Review
DAMN! (I'm not even sure I'm allowed to swear in reviews) But damn! I cannot believe I took that long to finish this book! My assumptions are that I must have changed my genre or the book wasn't really as good as I thought. I'll go with the genre change.

Let's get on with the review shall we...
Golden Lily, the second book of the Bloodlines series. I enjoyed the first book as much as I enjoyed other books by Richelle Mead; she is one of my favorite authors. The gap between the first and second book releases was kind of a big gap. I wanted to reread or skim through Bloodlines (the first book) before I start reading Golden Lily, but then I thought, it was fine, I'm sure I'll remember what happened. But I didn't. I had to google some of the things that happened in the past book AND also in the Vampire Academy series (since Bloodline is a spin of the Vampire Academy series). I was confused in the first few chapters for a while, but things started to clear up.

The tension between Adrian and Sage is honestly what kept me going. I so want them to get together, but it is of course a forbidden love (that never stopped Rose and Dimitri).

The entire plot of Golden Lily was okay. It was interesting and engrossing but it doesn't give me the same exciting feeling that books like this used to. Honestly, I have mixed feelings towards it.

There were new characters that was introduced, new groups and love triangles everywhere! Well just one. And there is a mystery man that I am very curious about, which I'm sure, he'll be featured in the next book.

The last few pages was just... I can't explain it. It was just... argh ! (in a good way)

I am excited for the third book of the Bloodlines series and I hope it will be as good as the first two books combined.

FOUR FABULOUS FLOWERS!