Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters (2014) – Meet the Cast

The big news for fans of Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series is that we will finally see the first film 2014. Richelle Mead explains that they wanted each film to have a unique title to set it apart from the multitude of films and television series in the vampire genre and the title of the first film is Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters.

In Vampire Academy, Rose Hathaway is a dhampir, half-human and half-vampire, who is training to become a guardian at the elite St Vladimir's Academy. Once qualified, she will serve to protect one of the royal or noble Moroi, a race of living, benevolent vampires who rule their society. There is only one Moroi that Rose wants to protect though, and that is her best friend Princess Vasilisa Dragomir, whom she calls Lissa. There are no lengths that Rose won’t go to in order to protect Lissa, including running away from school with her, but Vampire Academy opens with the duo being unceremoniously dragged back to the academy by guardian Dimitri Belikov. Little does he know the danger to which he is exposing them in the form of Strigoi (evil, undead vampires) and others who will use Lissa’s powers for their own purposes.

There have been several key casting announcements in the past couple of weeks and filming will begin at the end of this month.

Zoey Deutch is Rose Hathaway

Zoey Deutch most recently appeared as Emily Asher in Beautiful Creatures and she starred alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar in Ringer too. She definitely looks the part of Rose Hathaway; Rose is half-Turkish and Zoey has a lovely olive skin. The only doubt I have is that Rose Hathaway is a warrior, she absolutely kicks ass, and Zoey looks like a princess. Perhaps she can learn some classic Buffy combat moves from Sarah Michelle Gellar?

Lucy Fry is Lissa Dragomir

Lucy Fry definitely looks the part of Lissa Dragomir, the Moroi princess and last of the Dragomir family. Lissa might appear breezy from the outside but she possesses an inner strength and poise that make her a natural and powerful leader. The Australian actress is relatively unknown but she aced the audition and convinced the casting crew that she is indeed a Moroi princess.

Danila Kozlovsky is Dimitri Belikov

I can’t begin to express how thrilled I am that they have chosen a Russian actor to play Dimitri instead of making us sit through six films worth of a terrible Russian accent. Born Danila Valerevich Kozlovskiy, Danila has several films and TV shows under his belt and won a Golden Eagle (Russian Academy Award) for Best Actor this year for his appearance as Maks in Dukhless.

If Rose Hathaway is a warrior, then Dimitri is a god of warriors and he is virtually unbeatable in the books. Kozlovsky attended the Military Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia and always said he didn’t believe his time there was wasted. Well, perhaps he will do his own stunts and fight scenes? We can only hope.

Olga Kurylenko is Headmistress Kirova

This casting choice really pleases me as I enjoyed Olga Kurylenko's performance as Julia in Oblivion. Olga plays Headmistress Kirova and we tend to see quite a lot of her because Rose tends to get in trouble a lot.

Cameron Monaghan is Mason Ashford

Cameron Monaghan is another good casting choice in terms of his appearance but, again, I have to wonder about his physique. Mason is a dhampir and is meant to be stocky and powerful whereas the Shameless actor is quite tall and slim. I guess the actor will be spending a lot of time in the gym in the weeks to come!

Sami Gayle is Mia Rinaldi

Best known as Nicky Reagan-Boyle on the hit TV series Blue Bloods, Sami Gayle is a talented young actress but she looks nothing like Mia Rinaldi. Mia is described as having soft, blonde hair that curls around her face, making her look not unlike a china doll. Her soft looks belie her nasty nature and the grudge she holds against Lissa for breaking her brother Andre’s heart. Nevertheless, Sami definitely has a doll-like quality but I believe the strength of her casting will be in her performance. Mia undergoes quite a transformation in the books and I do think Sami will be able to handle that.

Well, I’m really looking forward to the film and I can’t wait until they start releasing stills and promo shots. I’m also really looking forward to seeing who they cast as Adrian Ivashkov but I might have to wait for that one as Richelle Mead only introduced him in the second book Frostbite.  Just to be clear though, I am absolutely 100% Team Belikov.

Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters will be released on Valentine’s Day next year – 14 February 2014.

What do you think of the casting so far? Who do you love and who makes you the most worried?

Read more »

Five Reasons to Love Richelle Mead

Richelle Mead is a best-selling author from Seattle, Washington.  She has three ongoing series with thirteen novels published so far and the word “prolific” certainly comes to mind when describing her writing.  Mead writes for both the adult and young adult audiences and while all three of her series fall into the urban fantasy genre, each one of them is quite different from the others.  I find it unusual, therefore, that I am equally fond of all three series.  If you haven’t heard of Richelle Mead yet, here are five reasons why you should rush off to your local bookstore immediately and buy her books:

1.  Vampire Academy 

Vampire Academy is a supernatural young adult series featuring Moroi and Strigoi vampires and Dhampirs.  It is set in St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for Moroi vampires and the half-blood Dhampirs who are training to be their guardians.  Strigoi are the enemy and are the murderous, blood thirsty vampires of lore who kill their victims, are undead and are hypersensitive to sunlight.  The Vampire Academy series is incredibly popular and the books have regularly featured on the New York Times Best Seller list since the 2008 release of the third book in the series, Shadow Kiss. 

The books are narrated by a young Dhampir named Rose Hathaway who is training to be a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa Dragomir.  Lissa is the last remaining member of the Dragomir royal line, one of the several royal families that rule over the Moroi vampires and the Dhampirs that protect them.  As a protagonist, Rose is a breath of fresh air as she is strong-willed and assertive while unmistakeably a teenager capable of making mistakes and serious errors in judgement.  The first book in the series was Vampire Academy and the series concluded in December 2010 with the release of the sixth book Last Sacrifice.  In June 2010, the film rights for the Vampire Academy series were optioned by Preger Entertainment. 

 

2.  Georgina Kincaid

The Georgina Kincaid series is an urban fantasy series set in Richelle Mead’s current hometown of Seattle, Washington.  Georgina Kincaid is a succubus who seduces men for a living and feeds off their guilt and emotions.  Reflecting what can only be the most hellish contribution to mortal affairs, lesser immortals such as incubi, succubi, imps and vampires are managed in a grand bureaucracy by demons and greater immortals.  Georgina serves Jerome, a middle management demon who chooses to take the form of John Cusack.  His best friend is a sardonic and self-righteous angel named Carter and his son Roman is a murderous and sociopathic Nephilim with a soft spot for Georgina. 

Succubus Blues was the first book in the Georgina Kincaid series and the sixth and final book Succubus Revealed will be released on August 30, 2011.  In each book, Georgina finds herself in the middle of a great supernatural mystery but it is her relationship with human author Seth Mortensen that keeps fans coming back for more.  If I had to pick one, I would choose the Georgina Kincaid series as my favourite of Richelle Mead’s series.

 

3.  Dark Swan

Out of the three series currently in print, the Dark Swan is the richest and most detailed in terms of fantasy and mythology.  Eugenie Markham is a powerful shaman who makes her living banishing spirits and fey to the Otherworld.  She is feared in the Otherworld and known as Odile Dark Swan but everything seems to change as she learns of her parentage and accompanying destiny.  The books in the Dark Swan series are adventurous and sexy with the action taking place both in our world and the Otherworld, the land of the gentry.  Joining Eugenie in her adventures are shape-shifting boyfriend Kiyo and the seductive yet dangerous fairy king Dorian.

The first book in the Dark Swan series was Storm Born and the third book in the series, Iron Crowned, will be released on February 22, 2011.

 

4.  Bloodlines

Now that the Vampire Academy series is concluded, Richelle Mead is writing a spin-off series called the Bloodlines series.  The book is set in the Vampire Academy world but will features different characters.  The series will be narrated by Sydney, an alchemist that readers were introduced to in Blood Promise, the fourth book in the Vampire Academy series.  While some of the other characters are known, one has been kept under wraps to prevent spoiling the story for those that have not yet finished the Vampire Academy series. 

Richelle Mead promises a brand new storyline in the Bloodlines series (not just the same story told from a different perspective) but she also assures readers that many of the questions that were left unanswered at the end of the Vampire Academy series will be answered in the Bloodlines books.  The first novel in the series, titled Bloodlines, will be released on August 23, 2011.  It sounds like Mead is going to have a hectic 2011 but she did tell her readers that the first draft of this novel in early January before she got stuck into writing the final Georgina Kincaid story.

 

5.  Richelle Mead

The final reason for buying Richelle Mead’s books and becoming a fan is her relationship with her fans.  Through her website, blog and Twitter account, Mead keeps her fans constantly updated with news and updates on her books and series; dates and times of book signings and appearances; alternate book covers from around the world; and other relevant information.  She is accessible and down to earth and this is reflected in her attitude towards fan fiction.  Rather than jealously regarding her books and characters as assets, she considers fan fiction as flattering.  In fact, she used to have a section on her website displaying fan videos before having to take them down for legal reasons. 

Richelle Mead is certainly an author to watch in the future.  She is versatile and talented and I can only assume that she will continue to entertain us with supernatural stories for many years to come. 

 

 

Find Richelle Mead’s book and series on Amazon.co.uk¦ Amazon.com

Article first published as Five Reasons to Love Richelle Mead on Blogcritics.

Read more »

Book review: Vampire Academy – Richelle Mead

It is official: I have read enough Richelle Mead books now to both classify myself as a fan and to warrant an “Author: Richelle Mead” label on this blog. I really do enjoy her Georgina Kincaid / Succubus series and I have recently finished Vampire Academy.
Vampire Academy is the first book in the Vampire Academy series and if you click on that link or the picture it will take you to the official Penguin website. In keeping with my generally good impression of Richelle Mead, her relative accessibility to her fans and her generally healthy and positive attitude, I am impressed to note that the official site has a section displaying fan videos. I really like that she sees fan-fic and fan interpretations as flattering as opposed to seeing them as theft or taking offence to them. It seems that she is a confident author who is able to withstand the pressures of fame and fan-worship and doesn’t constantly feel that her fans are taking a piece of her every time they move into her world.
Richelle Mead also has her own website and you can find the Vampire Academy page here.

---

It took me a long time to get into Vampire Academy and that was exacerbated by being so busy over the past couple of months, what with my visit to New York and trying to get back into the swing of life afterwards. Last week I decided to give it another proper try and so I started the book from the beginning again.
I noticed that the characters slowly began to grow on me and I found myself sitting at work wishing I could take some time to curl up and read some more. I became emerged in the world of Vampire Academy and wanted to spend more time in it. This might be yet another teenage vampire novel but it is light years away from the Twilight series on so many levels.
I remember thinking at some point in the beginning of Twilight that Bella seemed to be quite self-aware and confident; unfortunately, the relationship with Edward seemed to make her unravel into a neurotic, insecure and self-effacing shadow of a girl, sending the women’s liberation cause back fifty years or so.
The protagonist of Vampire Academy, Rose Hathaway, is not perfect but she is a strong and confident young woman, perhaps impossibly so for a sixteen-year-old teenager. If I were recommending a book for a teenager to read, I would sooner recommend Vampire Academy over Twilight. Rose is not perfect and she doesn’t always make the best decisions but she does deal with the consequences of her actions and she is able to walk away from a relationship with a boy without destroying herself or defining herself in terms of his affection towards her.
I feel that Richelle Mead has woven an interesting story and for once, I actually like her take on the whole vampire myth. (I’m not the biggest fan of vampire stories as it is because I find blood makes me faint and doesn’t really seem all that attractive or sexy to me). I will definitely read the other books in this series and I believe that the books will get better as she gets into the series, much in the way that the Succubus series improved book after book. I believe that there is a massive shake-up at the end of the third book though so I am going to wait until the fourth book becomes available later this month before reading any further.
Like Mead’s other books, this one isn’t a high end literary achievement but it is an entertaining read with some very likeable characters. I’ll give it 3.5 stars but I do expect the rest of the series to be an improvement.

Read more »

Book review: Succubus Dreams - Richelle Mead

This is the third book in Richelle Mead's Georgina Kincaid series about a succubus and her posse of immortal friends and colleagues. In Succubus Dreams, Georgina has to contend with a new succubus in town and not only does she have to mentor this particularly useless new recruit, she also has to figure out why the angel mafia is in town and who or what is sucking her succubus energy out of her body during her dreams.

Mead continues her character development in this book and manages to escape the trap of falling into comfortable and familiar stories and patterns in this third installment. I really enjoyed this book and as usual, my favourite characters were the jaded and sardonic angels and we were treated to a whole gang of them this time! What is the collective noun for a gang of angels anyway?

I wouldn't say this is my favourite book in the series so far. That might be because I didn't like the ending but that fact makes me respect Mead for delivering an ending that people aren't necessarily going to like. Also, I think it is that I specifically liked the Nephilim mythology in the first novel and so that will always be my favourite in the series.

This was a competent third novel in the series and it makes me look forward to the next instalment in the series. In the mentime, I've started reading Mead's young adult novel Vampire Academy. It is okay so far but I am not yet finding it as engaging as the Georgina Kincaid series.

For keeping me delighted after the third book, I give this one four stars. It loses a star because the ending was sad but that also paves the way for a higher rating of the next book.

Click here for my review of the first two books.

Read more »

Books: The Georgina Kincaid series by Richelle Mead

I've not had much luck with the libraries in Bexley, which is the area I live in. I used to go to the library next door to where I work but it is closed for a year for refurbishments. Anyway, I wasn't able to find the next Horowitz or Nix books at the library and decided to check out Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy series. All I could find, though, was Succubus Nights which is the second book in Mead’s Georgina Kincaid series.
I decided to give it a try but I didn’t really hold any hopes of it being any good. I have figured out that I’m not really into vampire stories (strange that, given that I have a blood phobia) and it did seem a bit… trashy.
Well, I am happy to say that I was definitely wrong. I had only read twenty pages in when I felt invested enough in the story and the characters to want to read the first book, Succubus Blues and so I ordered it through eBay.

Part of the reason that I enjoyed this series so much is that it is not a simple vampire story. In fact, while there are vampires in the story, their nature plays a very small part in the storylines of both books. The world of the Georgina Kincaid books is one where creatures of darkness, such as vampires, incubi, succubi, imps and other lessor immortals are all managed in a great bureaucracy by demons or greater immortals. Georgina’s particular ‘coven’ is joined by a sardonic, self-righteous angel although thankfully, they are not joined by any of the other creatures of good.
The books are funny and the characters are really well-written and totally likeable. These are not children’s books so keep that in mind; in fact, a succubus is a creature of the night that seduces men in order to steal their souls. There is a lot of sex in these books but I must say, I really enjoyed the scenes and thought they were well done.
Both books have a murder-mystery feel to them. Succubus Blues revolves around the murder of several lesser-immortals and Georgina has to figure out who is doing the killing and Succubus Nights has Georgina trying to figure out where her mortal friends suddenly got their superhuman abilities from.
One of my favourite parts of the books is that Georgina works in a bookstore and much of the story takes place in the store. A major character is Seth Mortensen, a famous writer and it is great to see Mead’s insight into the writing process and the life of a writer as she describes what Seth goes through to get a book finished. I imagine she is describing her own process and it is fascinating to read – in fact, it reminds me of what I was like when I used to write essays at university.
Richelle Mead has a website and a LiveJournal and she seems so down to earth and accessible. It is a huge contrast to how full of crap JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer are, that’s for sure. I’m probably going to finish this series of hers and then I’ll move on to her Vampire Academy and Dark Swan series.

I give both books four out of five stars. They are not high literature and definitely have a chick-lit, trashy feel to them but I really enjoyed them. These are also the first ‘urban fantasy’ books I have read and I might expand on the genre.

Read more »