Half Blood by Jennifer L Armentrout

Goodreads

281 pages
YA Parannormal Romance
1st in the Covenants series

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.

My 2 cents:  I really enjoyed this book!  The book started off with a big action scene, and just didn't let up!  There was plenty of action and forbidden romance in this book!

I loved Alex.  She talked so much smack, and acted totally bad ass to everyone who knew her, but underneath she was just like any other 17 year old girl.  The synopsis doesn't explain what her turmoil is really about--it starts out with her mother who was recently murdered by the daimons, and the decisions she made that now affect Alex.  Most of what goes on in this book is totally out of Alex's control, which she hates.

She slowly develops feelings for her trainer, Aiden.  It was pretty evident to me that Aiden was crushing on her long before she was crushing on him!  But anything between the two would be forbidden.  If that isn't enough for Alex to deal with, the most powerful Pure Blood has also developed some king of interest with her, and she can't stand the guy!

Other than Alex, there wasn't very much character development in this book.  I'm hoping we get more of that in the next book.  Most of the characters were pretty flat, with the exception of Alex, Aiden, and Alex's best friend, Caleb.  The plot was good, but another version of the same kind of plots we've already had (Vampire Academy, Fallen, Evermore) but this is a fresh take on it, especially everything going on with Alex's Mom.  Overall, I give it 4 stars!