Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, #4) - Richelle Mead

480 pages.
DIMITRI'S HEART HAS GONE DARK
Now Rose must journey to the ends of the earth to find--and kill--her one true love...
Or has the time come to join him?
BOUND BY LOVE, BUT SWORN TO KILL...
The rest of the world had considered Dimitri dead. And to a certain extent, he was. But I hadn't been able to forget a conversation he and I had once had. We'd both agreed that we'd rather be dead—truly dead—than walk the world as Strigoi. It was time to honor our words.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This one gets 5 stars for a lot of reasons
I really really wanted to read this to find out what happens next even if i have been late latching on to the Vampire Academy series, i took the trouble to pre-order it even, i sat up till 5.30 reading it...and well, it was really really good.
Rose has left St Vladimir's to find and kill Dimitri, and she's gone to his hometown to do so thinking that's where he would have gone.
Can't give a lot away, but she obviously meets Dimitri - The Strigoi. And on the way we meet a wonderful cast of characters, some of whom i hope are in the coming books too - including Dimitri's damphir family. Rose has huge decisions to make in this book - and her guilt at leaving Lissa and everyone else behind doesn't help either.

She loves Dmitri's family, she has a Moroi who wants her gone from Russia although she doesn't know why, she thinks Lissa doesn't want her anymore and wants to stay in Russia with the Belikovs, but then there's Dimitri and the promise she made of killing him.
Damn, i really can't say that much without giving away spoilers, and i really don't want to. Suffice to say it was heartbreaking what she had to go through with Dimitri as a strigoi. Does she kill him, does she turn strigoi herself, or just leave and go away. Didn't know what would happen until it did. The only think i was sure of was that she couldn't die seeing as there were supposed to be more books coming out - which was little consolation considering the suspense which kept building up slowly.

Meanwhile Lissa has a new friend at St. Vladimir, and more politics with the queen - and things aren't right on both counts. The one person that i really really fell in love with even more was Adrian. He certainly developed more as a character - he still has feelings for Rose, and his concern for others around him and his actions make him grow on you.
There's no real happy ever after at the end, but a huge promise of maybe there might be one after all in the coming books.
The only annoying part now is waiting for the next book Spirit Bound which doesn't even have a release date yet.

PS: If this review makes even less sense than my other ramblings, it could be from staying up all night reading the book and no sleep for 36 hrs does that to me sometimes. But was totally worth it.