Will Rose be able to protect her best friend Lissa, with whom she shares an unusual psychic bond?  Will Lissa and Rose be able to help Victor Dashkov break out of prison in order to save Dimitri, who loves Rose but also wants to kill her?  How will Rose's new boyfriend react when he learns that she wants to save her old boyfriend?  And is the love between Rose and Dimitri doomed to fail because he's an evil undead vampire?

Hmmm.  Perhaps we should rewind this story a little bit.

Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead is the fifth novel in the Vampire Academy series, and it's highly recommended that you read the earlier books in the series first so that you can fully immerse yourself in this magical and dangerous world before starting this book.  As you read the books in this series, you'll meet Rose, a Dhampir (vampire/human hybrid) who has spent years training to be a guardian.  Specifically, Lissa's guardian.  Lissa is a Moroi (a living, magic-using vampire) who is getting ready to take her place in the royal court.  And Dimitri is ... well, Dimitri WAS Rose's instructor.  Then he became her lover.  And now he's a Strigoi (an evil undead vampire) who wants to find Rose and kill her.  It's too bad that she didn't kill him when she had the chance. 

Oh, and for the record, Dimitri is also REALLY hot, if that's the kind of thing that would inspire you to read this series.  And it should.

According to Richelle Mead, the final book in the Vampire Academy series, Last Sacrifice, will be published in December.  The good news is that this exotic and entrancing universe won't vanish when this series ends.  Because she promises that in 2012 there will be a new spin-off series set in the same world. 

In the meantime, here are some more books (each one is the first of a series) that can quench your thirst for vampire fiction:

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer

Vamps by Nancy A. Collins

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

and of course ...

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer