Review--Betrayals (Strange Angel Spoilers)

No more little miss nice girl.

The Real World is a frightening place. Just ask sixteen-year-old orphan Dru Anderson, a tough girl who has taken on her fair share of bad guys. She's armed, dangerous, and not going down without a fight. So it's gonna take her a while to figure out who she can trust...

Poor Dru. Her parents are long gone. Her best (okay, only) friend Graves has been bitten by a werewulf. And she just learned that the blood flowing through her veins isn't entirely human. Now Dru's strange and handsome savior, Christophe, has her hidden away at a secret Schola for djamphir and wulfen teens. Trouble is, she's the only girl in the place. The really bad news? Dru's killer instinct says that one of her schoolmates wants her dead.

With all eyes on her, discovering a traitor within the Order could mean lot more that social suicide...

Just finished Lili St. Crow's latest in her debut YA series that released just earlier this year. I adored this book just as much as the first. There is just so much action going on, so many secrets about Dru's family that she never knew, that it really keeps my interest. I forget at times that Dru is sixteen because she is dealing with so many difficulties that even an adult would feel like giving up, but Dru never gives up.

Plus there is a lot of tension between her and these two guys, her only friend Graves, whom she met in Strange Angels is her constant companion through her travels since the death of her father. She has come to lean heavily against him, needing to know that she is not alone. But of course then there is Christophe, a guy with a whole string of secrets, many that she learns in this book. One that possibly connects him to her mother.

I find myself at an impasse as to who I would like to see Dru be with, Graves is great because he is always there, but Christophe has the whole mysterious thing going on, and you can tell that he cares for Dru even though he just met her in Strange Angels. Unless that itself might have been a lie.....that is in no way a spoiler! I am merely speculating!

Anyway the title, Betrayals definitely fits the bill for this book because there is a traitor in the midst. There are so many suspects that I couldn't even come to a conclusion. I had one guess, but the events made me retract it. There is still one other person I thought might be it, but even now I wonder.

Much like in Strange Angels the ending leaves you desperately craving for more and there is even more left unsaid, just as we saw in the first book. So many secrets get built up and not all of them are settled. We have some characters returning from Strange Angels and a string of new ones. All of which are well rounded and colorful.

As was said on the BOC Dru is put into a school of all boys and something doesn't feel right about that, because since she learned of her mother's heritage and of her own, she should be training, not taking remedial classes. There is definitely something inkling going on at the school and Graves is so happy being surrounded by more of his kind. Dru just doesn't know what to do or who to trust.

Betrayals was very exciting since there is a traitor among Dru and her cohorts. The fact that the book ends with another massive cliffhanger is going to make the wait for Jealousy in July next year that much longer. I guess I should be somewhat happy that I read this book a month later, because now my wait is just one month shorter.

St. Crow writes in a very different way as a YA author compared to her adult books. Her adult books have the futuristic quality to them in some ways, and yet her YA books have more of the current setting and time to them. Neither is a bad thing, I like the change and I like her first form of writing--I just want to acknowledge their differences.

Very much looking forward to Jealousy on July 29!

Next up is Lili's adult book Flesh Circus!