Betrayed-P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast

Betrayed
P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast
St. Martin’s Griffin, Oct 2007, $8.95
ISBN: 9780312360283

When Zoey Redbird was MARKED by the vampyre goddess Nyx, it was known that she would turn into a vampyre or die while being at the House of Night, a school and home for fledglings who need to be with their own kind and away from humans. However Zoey is not a normal fledgling because unlike her so called peers she has aMark yhat is filled in and an affinity for all elementals.

Thank to her mentor The High Priestess, Zoe is the new leader of the Dark Daughters and the enemy of Aphrodite and her clique who tortured others and called up vampiric ghosts. High school football players that Zoe knew when she was human are found dead. When her former boyfriend Heath, whom she still cares about in spite of her Changing into a vampyre turns up missing, Zoe vows to go to hell to find and rescue him and save her school from the murderous invaders. Instead she is captured by the killers due to a betrayal by someone she trusts.

Although this is classified as teen fiction, adults will enjoy this just like we do the works of André Norton. The mother-daughter author team casts a spell on readers in which vampires are accepted as a real species by humans. In some ways Zoe is a teenage Anita Blake before experience made the latter wary of sentient beings. The story line is fast-paced with a bit of an amateur sleuth mystery solved the hard way: being captured as Zoey fights for her freedom and being true to her school.

Harriet Klausner