The vampire Balthazar, dear friend of Bianca and Lucas from their days at the Evernight Academy, has been alone for centuries, without love or family, periodically crossing paths with his enemy, the powerful and ancient Redgrave, who murdered Balthazar and turned him into a vampire. When Balthazar agrees to help human girl Skye Tierney, who once attended Evernight Academy also, he has no idea what he's getting himself into. Skye has newfound psychic powers that have caught the attention of Redgrave, who plans to use her powers for his own evil purposes. Balthazar will do whatever it takes to finally exact his revenge on Redgrave. And in the meantime, his uneasy alliance with Skye begins to turn into something neither of them would have ever expected--something that could change the course of his future.

Balthazar is a spin-off focusing on a beloved character from the Evernight story of Bianca and Lucas, and their wraith-vampire romance. Balthazar's history and the events leading to his change into a vampire have been alluded to in the previous books, but are explored more fully in this title. It would be helpful to have read the Evernight titles previous to this story, but it is not entirely necessary. Skye's newly discovered powers enable her to emotionally, and almost physically, relive deaths that have happened in places where she happens to be. These psychic remnants of old deaths are frightening to her--one death in particular that is briefly referred to because it was a young person who committed suicide by hanging. In order to protect Skye from Redgrave, Balthazar poses as a teacher at her school, bringing up interesting ethical situations as they try to hide their budding romance, for fear that the teacher-student relationship will be misinterpreted. Sexual interaction is alluded to and romanticized, but not described. Skye is tormented by memories of a former boyfriend who dumped her after they slept together, though she is able to achieve closure on this relationship by the end of the book. There are bloody vampire battles in the climax of this exciting story, and the stage is set for Balthazar and Skye's story to continue in another book. Language is mild (infrequent use of b-tch, cr-p, sl-t).

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