Last Sacrifice, by Richelle Mead

Format: Kindle Edition

Published: December 7, 2010

Publisher: Puffin

Back cover blurb:

Rose Hathaway has always played by her own rules. She broke the law when she ran away from St. Vladimir’s Academy with her best friend and last surviving Dragomir Princess, Lissa. She broke the law when she fell in love with her gorgeous, off-limits instructor, Dimitri. And she dared to defy Queen Tatiana, leader of the Moroi world, risking her life and reputation to protect generations of dhampir guardian to come.

Now the law has finally caught up with Rose—for a crime she didn’t even commit. She’s in prison for the highest offense imaginable: the assassination of a monarch. She’ll need help from both Dimitri and Adrian to find the one living person who can stall her execution and force the Moroi elite to acknowledge a shocking new candidate for the royal throne: Vasilisa Dragomir.

But the clock on Rose’s life is running out. Rose knows in her heart the world of the dead wants her back… and this time she is truly out of second chances. The big question is, when your life is about saving others, who will save you?

My review:

A satisfying conclusion to the series, although I don’t think I enjoyed it quite as much as the previous book. Rose was on the run for most of the story, and I have to say the first half of the book was for more enjoyable for me than the end. I had already figured out who Lissa’s sister was, who killed Tatiana and who would be the new monarch well before any of those people were revealed, so for me they were kind of anticlimactic.

The romance side of the story was nicely done, with a realistic thawing in the relationships that had been strained. I wasn’t sure how Rose, Dimitri and Adrian were going to end up, which was at least one thing to keep reading for. However, Adrian seemed to have a complete personality change in this book from the last one where I loved him so much, so I was glad after his last petulant speech that things turned out the way they did. I can’t say I exactly swooned over Dimitri, but I was glad he came so far back on the road to recovery.

My rating: 4/5