Burned by P.C. and Kristin Cast, UK edition.

Title: Burned (House of Night #7)
Author: P.C. and Kristin Cast
Genre:  Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Publisher:  Atom (7th October 2010)
Blurb:

Y’all need to get yourselves together. Here’s a newsflash from the only High Priestess you have left at this dang school: Zoey isn’t dead. And believe me, I know dead. I’ve been there, done that and got the fricken tee-shirt.

Zoey Redbird is the youngest High Priestess in House of Night history and is the only person – vamp of fledgling – who can stop the evil Neferet from raising all kinds of immortal trouble. And she might just have a  chance if she wasn’t so busy being dead.

Well, dead is too strong a word. Stevie Rae knows she can bring her BFF back from her unscheduled va-cay in the Otherworld. But it’s going to take a lot more than hoping to bring Zoey back. Stevie Rae might have to give up a few secrets of her own . . .

Rating: **** (4 stars)
Review:

Burned is the seventh book in the House of Night series by the mother and daughter team P.C. and Kristin Cast. Burned starts with the dramatic events at the end of Tempted, but this time from a different point of view.

This is one of the best books in the House of Night series. It is also the first book in the series in which Zoey doesn’t have much on page time. The book is instead mainly carried by Stevie Rae and Stark. We do get the occasional chapter narrated by Zoey, and the Cast’s use these chapters to great effect. I think it is a brilliant move on the Cast’s part to have Stark as a narrator.  Not only does it move the story forward, it allows us to have more of an idea about Stark himself. As always I absolutely adored Aphrodite in this. She is my absolute favourite character in the series hands down, and she was in fine form in Burned. Stevie Rae has an interesting narrative journey in this book, I don’t want to give anything away for those who haven’t read this book yet but I want to say that I think she is incredibly brave in this book and quite strong in a leadership position.

The plot of the book is quite complicated, and at the same time quite simple. With the narration split into four (unequal) parts, this allows the Casts to have four different plot threads in the book. Kalona’s plot thread is an interesting one, as we get to see a little bit more about him. As I mentioned earlier, Stevie Rae’s plot thread is interesting and extremely complicated. She is in a similar position to Zoey several books back, and it is interesting to see how Stevie Rae handles things. Zoey’s plot thread is really sad and heartbreaking. And it is in many ways Stark’s plot thread that carries the book forward. It shows him to be a really awesome person, and that he is quite strong – both physically and mentally.

The ending of Tempted was a bit of a shock, but this one didn’t really come as a surprise to me. However, I really enjoyed it in spite of the predictability. I look forward to seeing where the Cast’s go from here, and cannot wait to read the next book.