Parents' Guide to The Fiery Heart: Bloodlines, Book 4

Attention, Bloodlines fans waiting for the steamy romance: Richelle Mead has answered your calls for more swoony moments. There's barely a chapter in the book that doesn't refer to Sydney and Adrian's love, from their text messages via a secret "Love Phone" to their many heavy makeout (and more) sessions, to their poetic declarations of neverending loyalty and commitment. But, as Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet, "these violent delights have violent ends," and the possibility of violence is what makes Adrian and Sydney's love a questionable proposition -- at least until the final book of the series.

Some of the likable secondary characters from previous books take a backseat to all the romance, but they're still there dealing with their own unrequited infatuations and entanglements, such as vampire princess Jill, her steadfast guardian Eddie, and the unpredictable dhampir Angeline, who pretends to like English guardian Neil but is actually quite taken with Sydney's friend Trey. Although Mead's clearly quite adept at writing about romantic chemistry, readers who appreciate Sydney's more bookish personality may be slightly disappointed that she's more likely to wax poetic about Adrian's body than ancient civilizations, philosophy, or even cars, as she's done in previous installments. Let's hope there's more of a balance between the mind and the body in the next book.