“I am off to kill the man that I love.”

Okay, that’s a dramatic enough premise to tempt you into devouring Blood Promise.

Shadow Kiss ended with Supernova Guardian/ All-Around Nice Guy/ The Cream in Rose Hathaway’s Coffee : Dimitri Belikov getting forcibly turned into a Strigoi. He is now out there somewhere, being a creature of the night, draining innocents of blood and generally living up to all the vile Strigoi stereotypes.

Remembering an unsaid promise made to Dimitri back when they were in a student-mentor relationship, the anguished Rose has now made it her life’s mission to seek out and (hopefully) kill *Dimitri with the chalk-white skin and red-ringed eyes*.

And to do so, she drops out of the Academy, parts ways with her best friend (and bond mate) Lissa Dragomir and heads off on a wild-vampire chase to Siberia. Why Siberia, you ask? Siberia is Dimitri’s homeland and he is more than likely to return to his roots. So, on Rose’s suicidal quest…we take the scenic route through Russia, run into a host of interesting (and most likely to play a crucial role in the future) characters and root for the troubled Dhampir girl as she finds herself in a Catch-22 situation.

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Blood Promise was good….not as good as the previous two instalments….but engrossing, nevertheless. It has a slightly meandering pace and at times, you actually want the touristic spiel to end and have Rose meet the undead Dimitri already!!!

I had a bit of trouble empathizing with a high-on-Vampire-Bite-Endorphins Rose, but that’s a minor grouse. Dimitri as a newly turned big, bad Vampire could have been well on his way to filling up the illustrious shoes of Angel. I still remember tearing up during the Buffy episode when the likeable Vampire Angel, who after experiencing a “moment of pure happiness (erm….intimacy with Buffy)”, morphs into the cruel, soulless Angelus. Potent stuff, that. I was expecting the same sucker-punching of emotions when Rose ran into the now evil Dimitri. Sadly, Angel/Angelus still remains the Poster-Boy of undead perfection.

In conclusion, the book was fair. It had a juicy dose of undead action scenes, the introduction of a new nemesis at St.Vladimir’s and Rose rising like the proverbial phoenix.