Frostbite by Richelle Mead

 Frostbite is the second book in Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series.  The first book mostly centered around high school mean girls and horny boys with one or two supernatural problems thrown in.  In Frostbite the stakes are a bit higher but there is still plenty of high school drama.

This time the danger is that Strigoi (the evil vampires) appear to be organizing with one another and with humans and attacking Moroi (the not evil vampires).  This is a shock to the Moroi and their Dhampir guardians who were under the impression that the Strigoi were too self-destructive, blood thirsty and generally evil to ever to manage to work with anyone else for an extended period of time.  That Strigoi are working with humans makes the problem even worse since it means they can coordinate attacks in the daytime when the sun is shining.

I’m enjoying this series.  Overall it is light, fun and entertaining.  Work is starting to get busy so light reading is all I have time for now.  One thing in particular that I liked – and I realize this is not so light – is that killing is taken seriously.  As Rose learns, it is not so easy to kill.  Even when their enemies have been vanquished, the Dhampirs acknowledge their victory but also acknowledge the death and destruction it took to achieve the victory.  That is kind of unusual.  Often in books with a lot of action no matter the genre, people or other beings fall left and right without anyone batting an eye.  It was refreshing to have a hero in the making learn that although victory is great the process of getting there might not always be so great.