I met Melissa de la Cruz at World Fantasy Con a few years ago, but her Blue Bloods books were already on my radar. It’s taken me that long to pick them up. When the final book in the series came across my desk I figured it was time (I hate waiting for sequels.)
For the first hundred pages or so I was lost. What was the big deal with this tedious tale of
upper crust folk hiding a secret that any idiot could see was vampirism? The loving descriptions of luxury, high-class brand name dropping and outright snobbery was…disappointing.
Then came the hints that this was the point. The Blue Bloods are fallen angels, repeatedly incarnating in an effort to redeem themselves and reenter heaven. But instead they’ve surrounded themselves with wealth and power and raise money to throw at charities and pat themselves on the back. They’ve become comfortable in their purgatory, especially since they have strength, speed, healing and money beyond the poor little humans. They’re in stasis, not evolving, or repenting at all.
In fact, when change does come, in the form of a slew of murders of young Blue Blood teens before their transformation into powerful immortal creature is complete, the ranking elders actually take measures to hide it. Schuyler van Alen, social misfit, and Jack Force, totally hot popular kid, find themselves the only Blue Bloods suspicious of what’s being hidden. Could something out there be purposefully preying on Blue Bloods?
Well, yeah, and it turns out the elders have been hiding it for centuries. So suddenly this posh society story becomes one of adults versus teens with the latter’s lives on the line. Likewise the lengthy descriptions of who is wearing what and how morph into rich details that make the world of the Blue Bloods books pop.
How far will the elders go to hide their past? How far must Schuyler go to protect the other Blue Bloods, most of whom despise her for reasons she doesn’t understand? And who is really killing kids? It takes more than one book to answer any of these questions, but this first volume sees a monumental change begin in Blue Blood society and in the characters living the tale.
In the end I was hooked, not because of the fabulous lives of the incredibly rich and super powered but because there’s a much more complex tale hidden here and I love stories with engaging subtext.
