The Ruby Circle

The Ruby Circle
by Richelle Mead

Publisher: Razor Bill
Publication date: 10-Feb-2015)
Format: hardback
Pages: 348
Series: Bloodlines (#6)
Genres: Young Adult
ISBN: 9781595143228
Source: University of Washington Bookstore (Online)
Rating:

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.

After their secret romance is exposed, Sydney and Adrian find themselves facing the wrath of both the Alchemists and the Moroi in this electrifying conclusion to Richelle Mead’s New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series. When the life of someone they both love is put on the line, Sydney risks everything to hunt down a deadly former nemesis. Meanwhile, Adrian becomes enmeshed in a puzzle that could hold the key to a shocking secret about spirit magic, a secret that could shake the entire Moroi world.
-Goodreads

Things I’ll cover in this review are the cover, the title, and the storyline. All of these are talked about in how they stand out alone, as well as part of the six book series. While the cover follows the same style as the previous five books in the Bloodlines series, it is unattractive. I’ve never been a fan of these covers, I do like how all the novels are a different color, which is reflecting on the title, but that’s about it. These are not books I’d have pick up for the cover alone. Essentially I feel that it is over embellished. The scrolling letters, with the people and flowers is just too much, especially when the girl on the cover has a vacant expression on her face. I would rather all the book covers remove the people and just center the title. The title is the only aspect of all the covers that has any symbolism anyway.

The title of the book confused me until I finished reading it and realized that the only ruby circles of the entire book, that I could recall, are Sydney and Adrian’s wedding bands. While I like the symbolism of the title being about Sydney and Adrian’s love and marriage, I felt there was more than that to the story that could have been hinted at in the title. Another thing that bothers me about the title is that there is no parallelism between it and all the other books. The Bloodlines Series consists of: Bloodlines, The Golden Lily, The Indigo Spell, The Fiery Heart, Silver Shadows, and The Ruby Circle. Four out of the six titles have an article in the title, while the other two do not.

As the conclusion of the series, I was disappointed (although I usually am in the last book of a series). The plot took some interesting turns and there were quite a few action scenes, but I wasn’t hooked into the tale. Unlike my favorite books, I was able to put this one down, and quite often at that. Despite the lack of drive to read the novel all the way through, I was happy with the outcome, hence the four stars.

I would recommend this book, just because I dearly love the rest of the series. “The Ruby Circle” had some deep moments when Sydney remembered her time in re-education, but besides that it was a bit fluffy.