. While you can start this series without reading VA I would suggest that Vampire Academy be read first. This series stars Sydney who is an Alchemist. The Alchemist's are a society that protect the human world from finding about the existence of vampires. Sydney is woken up in the middle of the night and told that she is being assigned to watch over the Vampire Queen's little sister Jill who is hiding from assassins in Palm Springs. She is soon enrolled into a private boarding school with Jill, her bodyguard Eddie while Adrian is staying nearby.This was a good introduction to a spin off series. It had just enough of the past to make Vampire Academy fans happy but also does a good job of separating from the original and creating a new set of problems and mysteries for the characters. The only thing that really bugged me about the book was Sydney's obsession with weight. The girl seemed to think she was fat as a size four and obsesses over Jill's thin physique. If a character is going to have weight issues then the author should at least make sure that the character isn't complaining about being a size four. I sped through the book and look forward to the rest of the series.
Appropriateness: This series is written for the older teen/adult crossover audience and the main character is eighteen. There is quite a bit of smoking/drinking (although not by the main character). There is no sexual content (although I would expect that there will be in later books).
