Bloodlines

About the Bloodlines series

Bloodlines is Richelle Mead's direct sequel series to Vampire Academy, shifting focus from Rose Hathaway to Sydney Sage, an Alchemist -- a human sworn to keep the vampire world secret and, historically, to view vampires and their guardians as unnatural. Bloodlines opens with Sydney assigned to protect Jill Mastrano Dragomir, sent into hiding at a boarding school after a plot threatens the fragile Moroi royal succession, forcing Sydney into far closer contact with the vampire world -- and the dhampir guardian Adrian Ivashkov -- than her Alchemist training ever prepared her for.

Mead uses Sydney's outsider, rules-bound perspective to interrogate the prejudices Vampire Academy's Rose never had to examine from the inside, while continuing that series' central conflicts around Moroi politics, Strigoi threats, and the guardians who protect against them. The romance between Sydney and Adrian -- unlikely, slow-building, and complicated by Sydney's Alchemist conditioning -- becomes the emotional spine of the series.

Complete at six books, Bloodlines is widely considered essential reading for Vampire Academy fans and the natural next series once the original sextet is finished.

How to read this series

Read Vampire Academy first. Bloodlines is a direct sequel series set right after Last Sacrifice and assumes you know the Moroi/dhampir/Strigoi world, the Alchemists, and events from the original series -- it is not a fresh starting point. Once you've finished Vampire Academy, read Bloodlines in publication order, starting with Bloodlines itself; Sydney and Adrian's relationship and the wider political plot build continuously across all six books, with no meaningful alternate order.