Bloodlines by Richelle Mead, book 1 of the Bloodlines series

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist – she has a duty to protect humanity from the vampires (the Moroi and the Strigoi and their half vampire children, the dhampires) and hide the vampires from humanity. The Alchemists move around the world, covering up, hiding bodies, bribing witnesses and keeping everything silent – all the while fearing and loathing the vampires they hide. Dealing with them as little as possible, always recognising them as alien and unnatural and wrong and reviling any time they have to spend in their presence.

Except Sydney got to close to a dhampire – and now she's under suspicion. She now has a new job – to hide Jill, a Moroi princess, from assassins all the while being under the suspicious eyes of her fellow Alchemists who hold a grudge – and are looking for a reason to ship her to “re-education camps”. And if she fails – her sister will be drafted in in her place.

Going into hiding in a boarding school is further complicated by a streak of strange murders in the area – and by odd tattoos, so similar to the Alchemists own secrets, that are extremely popular among the student body.

Thoughts on the Nine Lives of Chloe King

We look at Urban fantasy in both books and on the television - so when we heard of a TV series about preteneratural cat people running around San Francisco we simply had to check it out, didn't we? So I sat down to watch the first 4 episodes and get some preliminary thoughts together.

So Chloe King is a school girl in San Francisco who is descended from the Maia. The Maia are cat-people from ancient Egypt who used to be worshiped like gods, but fell out of favour. They are hunted and killed by some bad guys, one of which is after Chloe. Chloe is a super-special catgirl because she has 9 lives. This makes her the grand saviour of Maia-kind and therefore special. So the bad guy  really has to kill her – and 9 time at that. I hope he gets overtime.

All Maia have cat-like powers – agility speed, claws, senses etc. Oh and kind of based on what I've seen and extrapolating - a general willingness to imply cats have any kind of power that may be useful for the plot

I don't know. I didn't hate it? Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up. I didn't hate it, though it may be because I have very low expectations at this point. I didn't have to pause it and stomp out of the room in a dudgeon. I didn't fall asleep watching it. But if that sounds like faint praise, it pretty much is. I didn't hate it but nor was I slightly engaged by it, I could (and, I admit, did,) happily read at the same time as 'watching' it – not really surprising since I don't think I'm the target audience.

The plot was, well pretty basic. Big bad guys want to kill the super-special hero. You don't expect subtly from this, but I have to say it went beyond merely unsubtle and hit clumsy instead. We want it to seem like being the Special One is supposed to be an honour, but is actually a great life changing burden? Well, the leader of the Maia, Valentina, comes in with the WORST possible sales pitch ever. It's almost comic how hard she tried to be both kind and sympathetic AND make Chloe not want to be the Uniter as much as possible. I'm sure she could have been a little more blatant – she could have stood up and screamed “BEING THE UNITER IS HELLLL! HELLLLLLLLLLLL!!! AND WILL RUIIIIIN YOUR LIIIIIIIFE!” She could get in some dramatic hand gestures and everything! But then they are being hunted by a James bond villain who, rather than just stab Chloe 9 times while she's chained up and helpless decides to pull the whole convoluted trap thing. Really *stab* ugh... *die* *GASP!* ALIVE AGAIN! *STAB!* rinse, repeat until she stops getting up. Nothing is hinted at, which I don't exactly expect – but nor does it have to hit you in the face either.