Krista Reviews: Richelle Mead's - "The Indigo Spell"

In the aftermath of a forbidden moment that rocked Sydney to her core, she finds herself struggling to draw the line between her Alchemist teachings and what her heart is urging her to do. Then she meets alluring, rebellious Marcus Finch–a former Alchemist who escaped against all odds, and is now on the run. Marcus wants to teach Sydney the secrets he claims the Alchemists are hiding from her. But as he pushes her to rebel against the people who raised her, Sydney finds that breaking free is harder than she thought. There is an old and mysterious magic rooted deeply within her. And as she searches for an evil magic user targeting powerful young witches, she realizes that her only hope is to embrace her magical blood–or else she might be next.

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, the Bloodlines series explores all the friendship, romance, battles, and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive—this time in a part-vampire, part-human setting where the stakes are even higher and everyone’s out for blood 

ISBN #9781921518911

Sydney takes a huge leap into the world of magic in this third instalment of the Bloodlines series. This is directly against everything she has been taught as an Alchemist.

In book 2, she was told a rumour about a rogue Alchemist, Marcus Finch. It’s absolutely unheard of in her world for anybody to leave the group and she finds herself wanting to find Marcus. He just may have some of the answers she has been looking for. But in the meantime, she has been pulled into the world of magic by one of her teachers, and this has put her in danger. There is somebody out there killing witches and growing stronger by taking their power.

One thing that has been a constant in the writing of this series is the pacing of the novels. They all have a gradual build up to a big event and a surprise ending to enter into the next story. The relationships between the characters is growing stronger with each book as well. Although now that Sydney is not Jill’s main protector, some of the school friends are not seen as much in this book as the first two. The focus of the story is on Marcus Finch and her growing relationship with the vampire Adrian – yet another thing that is frowned upon by the Alchemist group (fraternizing with vampires).

The growing relationship between Adrian and Sydney is just part of the character growth that we see within Sydney. In The Indigo Spell Sydney shows the most developed and biggest changes to her character. Not only questioning what she really believes in (as opposed to what she has been taught) and she learns to follow her heart over her mind. She has a huge tendency to over-think things because she is unsure and scared of the consequences. She really is at college age at this time and I was very happy to see her discover her truths.

Just as the Vampire Academy Series is highly addictive, this book as made this series addictive for me. In the first two books I was exploring the world and who the characters are, but now we see a huge leap of faith in our main character Sydney, and I’m rooting for her. I find her very strong and becoming more determined each book. They are fun, with great pacing and I love the suspenseful build up to see where each book will take us.