Novella Review – Bloody Valentine (A Blue Bloods Novella) by Melissa De La Cruz (3/5 stars)

This was a set of three short stories set in the Blue Bloods series, timeline wise they take place after the fifth book in the series, Misguided Angel.  The next full book in the series is due to be released in October 2011 and will be titled Lost in Time.  Overall this was an okay read for fans of the series.  It fills in some gaps that were apparent in Misguided Angel and takes us through the bonding ceremony for Schulyer and Jack.

There are three stories in this book.  The first is from Oliver’s perspective.  He is dealing with his dependence on Schulyer’s blood and a witch named Freya enters the story to help him.  Freya is going to be featured in Cruz’s new series The Witches of East End (due out later this summer).  The second story tells about how Allegra and Ben meet and fell in love and is set in the 1980’s.  The third is the longest and tells the story of Schuyler and Jack’s bonding ceremony.

All of the stories were okay, but none of them progressed the story much.  It was nice to get some background on what was happening with Oliver, he kind of got dropped in the last book and I missed him.  Hearing the story of Allegra’s past gives some excellent insight into Schulyer’s parents and why they made some of the decisions they did.  Of course Schulyer and Jack’s bonding ceremony was nice to read about and actually had some interesting parts to it.  It was also good to hear a bit from Bliss and find out some about what she’s been up to.

I am going to be honest, Misguided Angel, wasn’t my favorite of the Blue Bloods books…it seemed a little bit like filler to me.  This set of short stories is similar.  It is nice to know what is going on with some of the characters that were missing in Misguided Angels.  This book still feels like filler to me though.  I am starting to wonder if Cruz really knows where she is taking this series.  I plan on reading the next book, Lost in Time, in hopes that the epic story that was so awesome in the fourth book will be picked up again and progressed.

Overall well-written and an okay addition to the series.  Mainly little filler stories to fill in the parts that were neglected in Misguided Angel.  A fine light read, but not much progression as far as the story goes.  I am hoping that the next book, Lost in Time, picks up the main story again.