Esther's Ever After: Bloodlines Blog Tour & Giveaway

Starting on August 23, there were 20 blogs participating in a blog tour event organized by Penguin Canada! And today I'm stop #16, so welcome!

Penguin Canada very kindly provided all of us with ARCs of Bloodlines, so I read it back in July- and I have to say it was amazing. I was so pleased with it, and I really can't wait for all of you to read it as well! It was the first book I read by Richelle Mead, so I'm now hoping to go pick up some more of her books soon. You can read my review of it posted here, where I gave it FIVE shiny gold stars!

And because I loved it so much, I'm going to give away a copy of Bloodlines from The Book Depository. Contest will run until September 20, when you can come back here to find out who won and stop by for the blog tour that day! The entry form is found at the bottom of this post, my regular contest rules apply. Since it's from TBD, this is open internationally as long as they ship to you.

But in honour of Penguin Canada's Bloodlines blog tour, I decided to post the Top Ten things I loved about Bloodlines:

Sydney Sage
Simply put, I love Sydney. I totally related to her, and I think she's going to prove to be a fantastic heroine, one with real, applicable issues that are important ones to deal with. Plus, she comes across as such a different character from Rose (so I hear, and have that impression) that it's refreshing.
The Alchemists
As much as I enjoyed the Bloodlines vampires, I have to admit that I adore the concept of the Alchemists. One of my favourite parts about Bloodlines was getting to read all the history and background information Sydney provided about the Alchemists.
Character development
I like interesting and complex characters, with their own issues to work out. And Bloodlines only hints at the kinds of problems which will arise later on, but I'm already pleased to see teensy bits of development happening.
Vampires that are actually creepy
I like reading about vampires that actually drink human blood (because that's just what vampires do!) and I thought it was great how Richelle Mead worked out a system for them to do so, even with difficulties.
A stand-alone spin-off
I haven't read Vampire Academy. But I had NO problem at all following along with Bloodlines. Sure, there are some spoilers that I pick up from Bloodlines about VA, but reading this has actually convinced me to go and read VA sometime soon!
Adrian
I like Adrian, even though I don't know him from Vampire Academy. But he was significantly less angsty and depressing than I thought he would be at first.
That ENDING!
I won't spoil anything. But the ending is good. I REALLY can't wait for The Golden Lily now! Full of action and surprises.
The lack of insta-love
I'm kind of getting sick of books where the main characters just see each other across a dark room and are instantly in love, and do everything to end up together. So needless to say, I appreciated that there was very little romance in Bloodlines- I know, I know. I enjoy some good romance as much as the next person. But I'm confident that when Richelle Mead actually DOES bring up more romance in this series, it will be amazing. Epic.
The nifty lily tattoos
You know what? I actually really liked the Bloodlines cover. And I like the lily tattoo, I think it's a neat idea. Plus I think it's really pretty- so pretty I went and actually bought a necklace of it from Cadsawan.
The twists
Confession: I didn't see most of them coming. And I really liked that they were surprising, and kept me guessing so that I wasn't sure of what to expect.