THE GOLDEN LILY by Richelle Mead

Book Two in the Bloodlines series
Publisher: Razorbill
Number of pages: 421
Date read: June 12th, 2012 (re-read)
Genre: Young Adult, Supernatural, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy
Source: Bought






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(Description source: Goodreads)

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.

Sydney would love to go to college, but instead, she’s been sent into hiding at a posh boarding school in Palm Springs, California–tasked with protecting Moroi princess Jill Dragomir from assassins who want to throw the Moroi court into civil war. Formerly in disgrace, Sydney is now praised for her loyalty and obedience, and held up as the model of an exemplary Alchemist.

But the closer she grows to Jill, Eddie, and especially Adrian, the more she finds herself questioning her age–old Alchemist beliefs, her idea of family, and the sense of what it means to truly belong. Her world becomes even more complicated when magical experiments show Sydney may hold the key to prevent becoming Strigoi—the fiercest vampires, the ones who don’t die. But it’s her fear of being just that—special, magical, powerful—that scares her more than anything. Equally daunting is her new romance with Brayden, a cute, brainy guy who seems to be her match in every way. Yet, as perfect as he seems, Sydney finds herself being drawn to someone else—someone forbidden to her.

When a shocking secret threatens to tear the vampire world apart, Sydney’s loyalties are suddenly tested more than ever before. She wonders how she's supposed to strike a balance between the principles and dogmas she's been taught, and what her instincts are now telling her.

Should she trust the Alchemists—or her heart?

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“Adrian, I'm on a date. Why are you here? On my car?”

The Golden Lily kicks off from immediately after the events concluding Bloodlines.

In the first few chapters, Mead reintroduces the Alchemists and shows us exactly how they feel about Vampires, this resonates in Sydney as she has gotten closer to them than the Alchemists would be accepting of. This is reflected with Sydney getting a look at the effects of getting too close to the vampires (Strigoi especially) and what she would be submitted to if the other Alchemists found out about her strengthening friendships.

Sydney has not only had the impossible task of keeping the vampires in line and from not being discovered by their fellow students and community members in Palm Springs but has also had to deal with the everyday ramifications of living with teenagers and this has not been easy to say the least. But when Angeline joins their 'family' with her more uncivilised mannerisms and expectations, Sydney definitely has her work cut out for her.

Balancing this family life with friendships, a newly discovered love- life and her school time now containing magic use (which the Alchemists highly disapprove of to say the least), if Sydney makes the wrong move, may be sent in for reeducation.

With threats being made to her vampire friends by a dangerous and mysterious Vampire Hunting group, Sydney is torn between her loyalties to the Alchemists and to her new friends.

Okay so it's no secret that I simply LOOOOVE these novels, mostly because of Adrian *swoon*, but I love not only his character development but also that of others such as Angeline, Eddie and Jill and of course Sydney herself.

With Angeline beginning as a quite rough and out of place character she finds her niche in the 'family' and starts to integrate quite well into the human culture and society of school. I like how she changes and begins to learn about respect and love and all manner values and qualities and that she begins to demonstrate these herself. I find that she is a very likable character and her growing relationship with the others is great as well as her growing sense of maturity and responsibility.

Jill is a totally different kettle of fish throughout both Bloodlines and The Golden Lily she certainly has her moments. Her childish side comes through whenever boys or the modelling are concerned and she often does not take others into consideration  Besides that she is has a likable character and I really like the idea of her and Eddie possibly being together in future novels because Eddie seems to ground her and help her to consider other people.

I think that Adrian and Sydney (mostly Adrian though) provide the majority of the humour, so much so that there is an almost endless list of hilarious lines such as these ones:

“But I’m just going to be out there having a tea party with her cats or whatever it is she has in mind."

and

You used nunchucks on a moose?"
Wolfe got a haunted look in his eyes. "I used all sorts of things on that bastard.” 

....that had me laughing so hard every few chapters. I am SO glad that the amount of humour was increased and that it did not seem as though the humour was out of place of forced in any way.

 Although aspects of the plot were quite predictable I found that others were actually quite surprising and unexpected. I think that the balance between character development and storyline plot was perfect and Adrian was PERFECT (as always).

Okay I simply CANNOT wait to re- read The Indigo Spell!! More Adrian!!!!!

"Day 24. Situation is growing worse. My captors continue to find new and horrific ways to torture me. When not working, Agent Scarlet spends her days examining fabric swatches for bridesmaid dresses and going on about how in love she is. This usually causes Agent Boring Borscht to regale us with stories of Russian weddings that are even more boring than his usual ones. My attempts at escape have been thwarted thus far.

Also, I am out of cigarettes.

Any assistance or tobacco products you can send will be greatly appreciated.
-Prisoner 24601"

I rate The Golden Lily Five out of Five!!!