Book Review- The Rising by Will Hill

Title: The Rising

 Author: Will Hill

Series:  Department 19 #2

Published:   29 March 2012 by Harper Collins

Length: 701 pages

Warnings: strong violence 13+

Source: Publisher

Other info: I read book one sometime ago and reviewed it here.

Summary : Sixteen-year-old Jamie Carpenter’s life was violently upended when he was brought into Department 19, a classified government agency of vampire hunters that was formed to deal with a little problem . . . known as Dracula.
But being the new recruit at the Department isn’t all weapons training and covert missions. Jamie’s own mother has been turned into a vampire—and now Jamie will stop at nothing to wreak revenge on her captors. Even if that means facing down Dracula himself.

Review: As soon as I finished Department 19, I knew I ahd to read the next one and see how it carried on. So I was really looking forwards to this one. It picks up where book one left off with Jamie, Larissa and Kate recovering at HQ.  And soon, they receive news about Dracula’s ashes. Old vampires are preparing  , and it’s time that Department 19 do too-Dracula is getting ready to rise.

I essentially fangirled throughout Department 19. It was amazing (see my review) And Department 19-The Rising is just as worthy of this praise.

It doesn’t just focus on the three young operators. You get a lot of background information on Frankenstein and the Rusmanovs and Dracula himself. So although it wasn’t just the present day, everything moves us closer to the Rising and builds up character depth, making the present day action more relevant and more exciting.

Plot-there’s quite a few plotlines threading their way through this, as well as the obvious.  For reasons that I shouldn’t say, Jamie leads a party to France to find him. Along the way, he also meets the “King of Parisian Vampires, and we get a little side story with him. And so on with many others.

My favourite character was Valentin. He does many completely unexpected things, and gives us a very different perspective of him to what we had had before reading this book. And the whole brotherly love thing with Valeri, well, it’s kind of non-existent. It’s really interesting seeing how the two brothers, the second and fourth oldest vampires ever, interact.

There’s a lot of character development from our main characters. Already with huge responsibilities, they have to be even more mature in this book. I liked the return of matt, the boy who was featured in the first novel but not too much, and his integration with the Lazarus plotline was really interesting. I hope we get to see even more of him someday soon.

There’s no waffling, just words to further the plot or our understanding of the characters. The action scenes were frequent and really well written, and all 700 pages were necessary. And the ending...don’t just leave it there! Now we have to wait (most likely) a year for the next one...but that cliffhanger....amazing.

The only reason this is getting 4.5 tea not full 5 is that it just missed a little something compared to book one. That said, it is an amazing book that any vampire addict should read. 

Overall Strength 4.5 tea rounded up to a 5 to a really strong vampire novel, with a little something for everyone.:  

Links: Amazon | The Book Depository | Goodreads | Author website |