Loved is the first book in a new trilogy in the House of Night series. I haven’t read any of the other books and so it took a few chapters to get into the story and familiarise myself with the characters. I would recommend having read at least some of the other books before reading this as there are so many references to what happens in the earlier books that I found it quite confusing.

It was a fast paced read with lots of action and banter. The characters did feel a little young for their age at times. (Or perhaps I’m just a bit too old to enjoy the writing style) At times the dialogue was cringe-y and felt quite disjointed. It was obvious that the book was written by two different people. One minute the language was very modern with lots of slang and the next it was old fashioned.

I did enjoy the interesting take on vampires and magic and I liked the importance of friendship as a theme throughout the book. The ‘Nerd Herd’ were a tight knit group and knew each other very well, which was nice, but because the relationship building between them has already been done, I found I just couldn’t connect with the characters like I wanted to.

Actual rating 2.5 stars

Many thanks to Head of Zeus for the review copy in exchange for an honest review.