Review - Half-Blood (Covenant #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Pages: 281 pages

  Published Date: October 18th 2011 by Spencer Hill Press

  ISBN: 0983157200 (ISBN13: 9780983157205)

  Edition language: English

 Genres: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Greek, Mythology

Goodreads Synopsis

 The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi-pure-bloods-have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals-well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures. Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

 

 

 

Half-Blood was even better than I expected it to be. Which is saying a lot, because I've already read the Lux series (can't WAIT for the third installment - comes out in December!) and I absolutely love Jennifer Armentrout's characters and her style of writing. 

Read the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead? If yeah, then the Covenant series is waiting for you. I found so many elements similar, it was pretty startling. I've listed a few here, all of which are spoiler-free:

In Vampire Academy: The narration is from Rose's point of view; she's really snarky and sarcastic; wants to appear cool and bad-ass; initially a guardian-in-training

In Half-Blood: The narration is from Alex's point of view; she's also really snarky; wants to look cool; training to be a Sentinel

In Vampire Academy: The Moroi and Dhampir classes

In Half-Blood: The pure-bloods and half-bloods

In Vampire Academy: The bad guys - Strigoi

In Half-Blood: The bad guys - daimons

In Vampire Academy: The center of government is Court, and Rose stays at St. Dragomir's.

In Half-Blood: The Council's the runner of affairs; Alex resides in the Covenant.

In Vampire Academy: Forbidden love LOL; Rose's love interest is her trainer; there's also a love triangle

In Half-Blood: Forbidden love too; ALex's love interest is also her trainer; the love triangle sprouts in the second book, Pure.

In Vampire Academy: Someone close to Rose is turned into a  Strigoi.

In Half-Blood: Someone close to Alex is turned into a daimon.

Many people found these similarities (there are way more) irksome, and gave Half-Blood on or two star ratings. I, however didn't have a problem with the similarities at all. Maybe because it's Armentrout.

 Alex's personality is so great, you'd get attached to her from the start. She's got remarkable strength of character, and the way she goes through each trial and suffering (there are lots) without losing heart is what earns her cool points. She and Rose from Vampire Academy are almost clones.

So, yeah, I absolutely love this book. There's no shortage of action or awesomeness. Just like with her her series, Jennifer Armentrout doesn't disappoint. At all.

Add It To Goodreads!

Buy It Online!