The Truth is in the Blood

Masquerade
A Blue Bloods Novel
by Melissa de la Cruz

Genre; Young Adult/Contemporary/Science-Fiction
Publisher; Atom/2010/Great Britain
Pages; 304
ISBN; 978-1-905654-77-2

Plot; In the first book of this series we meet Schyler Van Alen and the Blue Blood crew of Duchesne who are fighting to find the identity of the Silver Blood among them, slowly killing these immortal creatures one-by-one.

Masquerade is the second of this series and while planning the ball of the year, the annual Four Hundred Ball, Schyler thinks she may be onto the secret Silver Blood in their ranks. This knowledge takes her on a hunt to Venice to find her grandfather, Lawrence, who she has been told will know how to defeat this foe.

Will she find her grandfather before it is too late? And, will he be able to offer her the help she needs?

My Thoughts; Yet abother great book in this series! After reading the first Blue Bloods novel I was hoping that Melissa de la Cruz would keep up the suspense and intrigue, and she most definitely has.

I don't want to say too much through fear of giving away the surprises for those who have not read the first book, but I must say that I think this book is an improvement on the first, which I didn't think was possible.

Again Melissa de la Cruz has used some very effective writing techniques throughout this story. In the first book she used regular diary entries as kind of lamp posts to move the reader forward in terms of knowledge of the history of the Blue Bloods. In Masquerade she has used a similar format, only she has exchanged the diary entries for newspaper clippings. This is a wondeful tool for not only marking inportant events in the plot timeline, but it also adds to the mystery because, if you have read the first book you will know, that each diary entry or newspaper clipping is relevant to the modern day Blue Bloods. At every clipping I enjoyed sitting back and trying to reason who the clipping may be referring to.

As much as I love the New York setting for this series, it was nice to take a trip to Venice in this installment. There is something so lucious about seeing this ancient line of Blue Bloods against the historical backdrop of Venice; riding in gondolas, slipping through the maze of alleys, walking over cobbled bridges.

As I have said before, I do not want to say too much, because I do not want to give away too much to those who have not read the first book, so I will end my review here. But I will say this, if you see these books sitting on the shelves of your library or corner store, you should definitely reach out and grab a copy, because, if you are anything like me, you will become quickly addicted to them.

Happy Reading!