Actual Rating: 3.5 stars 
 This book took me a very long time to finish. I think I first started it sometime in January of this year, read about half of it, and put it down. I only recently competed it towards the end of August. So if you think about it, it only took me about eight months (way, way too long ...). I picked up from exactly where I left off, which might not have been the best decision because I couldn't really remember the details of the first half. The main plot points were still recognizable though, so I don't think it was necessary to start a 400-something page book all over. Not only because I didn't want to, but because there wouldn't really have been much to get out of it again in the first place. 
 In summary: Rose goes to Russia looking for Dimitri. She stays with his family for a while before being captured by him (he's an evil Strigoi vampire now). Lissa begins hanging out with a suspicious girl named Avery. And that's pretty much it. I have to admit it: quite a bit of Blood Promise was boring. I like Lissa, but I didn't really care as much as I probably should have about her issues. I was anxious to get back to Rose and her adventures. 
 The last hundred pages or so really made up for the previous snooze-fest. There was a big confrontation between Evil Dimitri and Rose. The scene on the bridge was positively heart-wrenching. I really love their romance, and I know Dimitri is really a good guy, so seeing him act in a completely horrifying way was really sad. I suspected he wasn't dead after the bridge thing, though. Somehow that would have been too easy. 
 I'm fairly anxious about how the rest of the romance in this series will develop. I think Adrian is awesome, but as I've said before, I don't think he and Rose would work well as a couple. So the foreshadowing if it happening kind of annoyed me. I really like the direction Mead is going with the whole Victor/Robert thing, and I think that'll be interesting to see later. 
 Blood Promise definitely won't go down as my favorite book in the VA series, but I'm still going to finish this up before the end of the year.