Bloodlines

Bloodlines by Richelle Mead, 2011 Razorbill Publishing

     Bloodlines is a spin-off of Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series. It is the first novel in its series and follows Sydney Sage. She and her family are Alchemists, a group of humans who have taken it upon themselves to prevent vampires from preying on humans and taking advantage of the discrepancies between human and vampire abilities.
     Sydney is like any other human girl, except for her place among the Alchemists, and her enhanced abilities. Somewhere in her past she helped to establish Lissa Dragomir as queen of the Moroi, a "less disgusting" type of vampire. In Mead's world, there are two types of vampires: the undead dhamphir, and the not yet dead moroi. While the Alchemists find the Moroi acceptable so long as they remain isolated from humanity, the dhamphir are to be destroyed at all cost.
     When Sydney is dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to play babysitter to Lissa's sister Jill at Amberwood Prep, a boarding school in Palm Springs, California, neither Jill nor Sydney are happy about the decision. But as soon as they think things are starting to settle down, Sydney discovers things are rarely as simple as they seem. Something vampire is lurking around Amberwood Prep and Sydney is going to discover the truth.
     The conflict between what Sydney sees as her duty to protect human-kind and the responsibility she has to keep Jill alive and prevent civil war makes her unsure of herself. When she allows herself to see the humanity in her new vampire companions, and even to see how an alliance--a lasting alliance--could stop all she's been fighting for her entire life. Bloodlines is a young adult novel, more appealing to teens.