Customer Reviews

Betrayals (Strange Angels, Book 2)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The story picks up from where Strange Angels left off - with Dru and Grave getting whisked off to a "supposedly" safe-haven Schola. But there's a traitor in the midst, waiting for their chance to kill Dru. The book's filled with angst, action, and, without a doubt, secrets - which undoubtedly leads to betrayal.

In Betrayals, all the different sides of our favorite main characters are revealed. There's more to Dru than that tough girl persona she puts up to keep people away - there's a part of her who misses and grieves the people she lost, there's a scared little girl who doesn't know what to do at times, and there's a streak of stubbornness that runs through her unrelentingly. As for Graves, he's growing from that gangly goth boy that he was when Dru met him into the strong powerful loup-garou he was turned into and Christophe shows the fierce protectiveness he has for Dru.

Lili St. Crow's writing has gone from its slightly jumbled-up confusing descriptions to beautifully written, lyrical passages - definitely a step up from her first book where I found myself rereading parts to understand what was happening.

Overall, Lili St. Crow's world of djamphirs, werewulfen, and nosferatu definitely sinks its claws into you and will never let you go. It'll leave you wanting more.

Betrayals picks up about a week after "Strange Angels" ends. Dru Anderson and her friend, the newly made loup-garou Graves, find themselves in a school for young djampirs and werwulfen. Dru has been promised that she will be safe from Sergej, the vampire who killed her father and is now out to kill her. But Dru's not happy at her new home. She feels that she's being overprotected and under taught. No one wants to educate her about the new world she finds herself in or teach her how to protect herself. At the same time, the djampir who saved her before, Christophe, is being very secretive and elusive. He wants her help him find the person who betrayed her location and almost got her killed in the previous book. And it looks like the betrayer is still up to no good when Dru is attacked at school.

I found this book to be more enjoyable than "Strange Angels." There's more character interaction and Dru has opened up a tiny bit. Although Dru feels like an outsider as the only girl at school, this adds to the interactions between her and the other characters. The romantic possibilities are elaborated on, with both Graves and Christophe as viable boyfriends. There are a good amount of humorous moments, as well as a lot of action. There was good world building in the previous book, which continues in "Betrayals." We learn a lot more about Christophe and a little more about Dru's mother. We find out more about the abilities of the individual supernatural species, as well as their history. The only complaint that I have about this book is a minor one having to do with the author's writing style. She tends to use abstract imagery and repeats certain phrases constantly. It's less distracting in this book than the previous one though.

I highly enjoyed this book and recommend it to both YA and Adult readers.

Lili St. Crow has done it again! With her latest installment of the Strange Angels Series, St. Crow amps up the action and adventure with Betrayals.

Now that Drew is finally at this top secret school, not only is she the only girl in the whole place but there is someone trying to kill her. With the help of her friend, Grave, Drew will try to figure out who is behind wanting her dead. But that's not all, Drew's growing up and starting to feel something strange when she's around Christophe and Graves. Can Drew figure out what these feelings are or will she just end up getting hurt? Who ever said that being is a school fool of boys was paradise was wrong, horribly wrong.

Betrayals is the second novel in the Strange Angels series. Having picked up where the first one left off, Betrayals is an action packed thrill ride that leaves you hanging off the edge of your seat! Drew has to deal with being the only girl in an entire school full of boys and having to deal with a traitor. What I love is how St. Crow can still keep a reader captivated even in the second installment.

Drew continues spurting out her sarcastic self but also develops with new feelings that she can't quit understand. While we have Graves who is adjusting to him being a wolf and controlling himself and his feelings for a certain friend. And then we have Christophe, who is still there to protect Drew, in a strange way, but something strange is happening with his feelings as well. In a whirl wind all three main characters stay themselves but grow up at the same time.

Betrayals is one of those rare gems where the sequel is even better than the first. Does not leave you boring but it leaves you wanting to go ahead and read the last chapter to see what happens next!

Other Books In The Series:
Strange Angels - The first book in the series
Jealousy: A Strange Angels Novel - The third book in the series. This one comes out July 29, 2010

Rare damphir girl gets put in an all boy school with her cute werewulf bf (who's not really her bf yet) and someone's trying to kill her. You should definitely do Strange Angels first. BTW I'm not YA but, sadly, i read their books all the time. I was reluctant to start this series because i just assumed it was another Vampire Academy. I suppose in some ways it is, only this one doesn't suck (i have a particular aversion to the v-academy), and i like the way Saint Crow writes her teenagers--this girl is like Dante Valentine but she's got the excuse of being a teenager... If you're anything like me, you don't trust this author after the completely anticlimactic ending of her otherwise awesome danny-v series, or even worse, the Jill Kismet series. Even after Strange Angels (which i really liked) i kept worrying that this one was going to start sucking because, plot wise, it took a while to advance and the direction it's going seems somewhat predictable (probably due to the fact that i read books like this all the time). Even so, I found it no less compelling and when things got moving i got REALLY into it. You don't have to be YA to enjoy it.

Like one of the other reviewers, I was looking forward to Betrayals with equal measures of anticipation and apprehension; I loved Strange Angels so much and I was afraid that Betrayals would be a letdown (like in a number of other urban fantasy series that I know). But I needn't have worried, because Lili St. Crow delivers another wonderful book! Slightly different from the first one and somewhat slower, but the world of the boarding school really comes to life and throughout, Dru's voice (wry, tough, filled with pain even though she isn't and doesn't want to be sentimental) holds the narrative together. More layers to Dru, her mother and her father are revealed and also, her relationship with both Christophe and Graves deepens. Here too, Dru doesn't make the easy choices and I love it! I can't WAIT for Jealousy to come out in June - write faster, Ms. Crow, I'm looking forward to a whole lot of Strange Angels books!

Great series I found through my friends on Shelfari. This is the second book of the series and I can't wait for the next one. Action, mystery, romance - what more can you ask for? Graves is a great friend but I can't help but root for Christophe. I found myself rushing through the pages during his absenses longing for his return. Hopefully the heat will get turned up a notch in the next one.

The sequel to Strange Angels, Betrayals picks up exactly where the first book left off and does plenty of flashbacks, in italics, to bring you up to speed if you don't quite remember what the first book was about. Surprisingly enough, I did. Usually I don't. I read so many books that details tend to fade and blend together. That Strange Angels didn't fade should show that it's a worthwhile book, and I rated it 4 stars. I remember being slightly put-off by the whole "She's a unique and special girl with a werewolf for a best friend and a potential vampire crush" a la Twilight, but I liked the story line enough that I was looking forward to the sequel.

I thought that this book had a lot of potential, but in reading it, I realized that it didn't quite hit the target. It's always possible that it could redeemed by further books in the series... or it could continue going downhill.

The majority of Betrayals flies by in a blur... literally for the main character. Dru spends the book--which covers, I believe, about a total of two or three weeks--in constant pain, frequently unconscious, and always completely unsure of what's going on and whom she can trust. She gets in battles every day, and she never comes out on top. That's not to say she doesn't win, but there's always some caveat--she starts bleeding so the other character wants to eat her; the other character starts bleeding so suddenly she wants to eat him, etc.

I was a bit disappointed in the battle scenes. At one point, Dru runs away from the school, which she's been at for about a week, and winds up entangled in a thorn bush. She hears screaming and sees a werewolf, and at one point (after running from the bush and slamming into a tree) sees the wolf tear apart a vampire. I left the scene believing Dru had been outside for, at the most, an hour, and that she had seen what was going on. But in the next chapter, it turns out that she had been outside most of the night, and there was a total three dead vampires, not just the one. Dru is described as shuddering and in shock and practically catatonic, though she had seemed fine in the descriptions of the actual battle. This left me saying, "Wait... what??"

Overall, this book wasn't as strong as the first book. Dru seems weak and stupid, whereas in the first book, she was the one who knew what was going on. She didn't necessarily know all of the pieces, but she was still able to defend and protect herself. Now she has to be protected by both of her "guardian angels" time and time again. In the climax, she is literally carried and dragged through the battle while she fades in and out of consciousness by one "angel," while the other is kicking ass for her.

I'm not going to say I didn't like Betrayals, but I can't really say that I did either. I guess I'm just waiting for third book to see if this is series is worth following any further.

I really enjoy this series. Book one was wonderful and book two didn't disappoint. I love that we don't know all about the world and we learn it as Dru does. That makes it all more the fun.

This was a good book. I really liked the first one and i like the second one too! The characters were great, new and old. Dru, her attitude is what i like the most. Complete bad ass! Love that kind of chick character, but her indecisiveness in this book kind of gets on my nerves. I like the way Graves develops in this book. You see more of the dominant person he can be. Christophe, I really like him, even though he's so secretive. The "love" triangle between the three, not so bad, but....I can really do without! Choose already! *SIGH* The story line was great, I don't want to give too much away so i'm going to leave it at that. And wassup with Ash?! Can't wait to read the next book.

Betrayals is the second book of the series. It follows a week after the events of Strange Angels, Dru and Graves have finally gotten to the Schola but Dru knows that there's a traitor within the order and she soon discovers that they weren't sent to the main Schola but a reformed school of sorts.

I thought that the prologue was lazy, it was just an extract from the the first book, that's really my only problem but it was only 3 pages so I didn't really care. The main thing that's different between this and Strange Angels is the pacing, it's far less slower, there are a few things that could have been skipped but it wasn't really that irritating because just like Strange Angels I was too excited and into the book to really notice.

More characters are introduced in Betrayals - there's Dylan who's in charge of the Schola and seems to know more than he's telling. Anna, who's pretty interesting and our first real female character but she was only briefly in it and I can't really say who she was because that would be spoiling! There is also Dibs who's a really shy and timid wulfen, I really love him he's so cute! Shanks is another wulfen he's cocky and arrogant but means well (by the way Dibs and Shanks aren't their real names).

I really love Dru, as I said before in my review of Strange Angels she really reminds of Rose from Vampire Academy and if you read Vampire Academy you know what I mean, you can't really help but love Rose. I liked that no matter how scared she was she always tried to shove aside that fear to do what she had too. Graves is with Dru through most of the book and we see more of Christophe and learn many things about him. Dru seems to be developing conflicting feeling for both of them but I liked how she shoved it aside most of the time because she has more important things to worry about.

The plot is full of mystery as Dru tries to find who the traitor is, many new things are revealed, there is a lot of action and even a cool car chase scene. The story, characters and the supernatural elements is something you don't want to miss, this is one of my favorite series and if you haven't already tried them then you really need to soon!