Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee

Here is a summary with spoilers for Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee

Rebecca Charity has been a vampire hunter since vampires killed her parents. After their deaths, she is taken in by Penny, a senior member of Callisto, an organization devoted to fighting vampires. Rebecca spends the following years being trained to hunt and kill vampires, while Penny keeps the details of her parents’ deaths largely to herself. Rebecca’s motivation is therefore both personal and institutional: she believes vampires are responsible for taking her family from her, and she has built her identity around eventually getting revenge. At the beginning of the novel, she is sent on another mission after surviving an encounter with a vampire in London. Penny offers her a chance at advancement within Callisto and, more importantly, promises that if Rebecca succeeds, she will finally receive answers about what happened to her parents.

The assignment is to infiltrate Tynahine University in the Scottish Highlands. Tynahine is an elite university primarily populated by vampires, but it has recently begun admitting a small number of human students as part of a larger attempt at integration between vampires and humans. Rebecca is given the false identity of Cassie Smith, a wealthy young woman, and is told to act like an ordinary student while secretly searching for the Book of Blood and Roses. The book is a legendary lost compendium containing information about vampires, including their weaknesses and methods for killing or possibly curing them. Callisto believes that finding it could give humanity an enormous advantage against vampires. Rebecca is specifically interested because recovering it could also bring her closer to the answers Penny has promised about her parents.

Rebecca arrives at Tynahine expecting to be surrounded by creatures she has been trained to consider dangerous. Instead, the university insists that humans are safe there. The vampires are supposedly governed by treaties and rules designed to prevent them from feeding on humans, and most vampires on campus consume synthetic blood. There are separate systems of education and social hierarchy for humans and vampires, and Rebecca quickly realizes that the vampire world is much more complicated than she was taught. There are different categories of vampires, including Heritage vampires and Converts, and powerful families have their own political influence. The average vampire student is also far older than a human university student because vampires can live for centuries.

Rebecca is immediately uncomfortable when she discovers that she has been assigned a vampire roommate. Penny is surprised too, because humans were not supposed to be sharing rooms with vampires, but she tells Rebecca to continue with the assignment. Rebecca eventually learns that her roommate is Aliz Astra, the heir to one of the most powerful vampire families. Aliz is confident, intimidating and immediately suspicious of Rebecca, while Rebecca sees her as exactly the sort of vampire she has been trained to hate. Their first interactions are hostile, and neither wants to give the other any reason to trust her. Rebecca also has to conceal the fact that she is carrying weapons and that she has been trained to recognize and exploit vampire weaknesses.

Rebecca begins making friends and learning how Tynahine operates. She becomes acquainted with Stephan, a human student who is dating a vampire named Ife, and Julia, a vampire who becomes another important friend. Through them, Rebecca sees examples of vampires and humans genuinely living alongside one another. This complicates the worldview Callisto gave her because the vampires around her are not uniformly violent. Some are openly interested in human culture, some have human partners, and some actively support the university's integration experiment. Rebecca also learns that there are vampires who strongly oppose humans being admitted to Tynahine.

One of those groups is the Red Ribbons, a vampire supremacist organization opposed to integration. Rebecca discovers that they are operating secretly around the university and that they are willing to use violence to undermine the human students' presence. Their plan involves manipulating a human into killing a vampire, which would give them an excuse to argue that humans cannot safely coexist with vampires and should be removed from the university. Stephan becomes one of their intended targets. Rebecca attempts to get the authorities to take the threat seriously, but the institutional response is inadequate, forcing her to warn her friends herself.

At the same time, Rebecca continues searching for the Book of Blood and Roses. Penny tells her that there is supposedly a hidden library somewhere beneath Tynahine, accessible through a network of old tunnels underneath the university. Penny gives Rebecca an old compass to help her navigate the tunnels. Rebecca begins exploring the underground passages and discovers evidence that the university contains far more history and secrets than its public-facing image suggests. She finds references to the Red Ribbon Society and begins encountering information connected to the powerful Astra family.

Rebecca's investigation eventually puts her directly in danger. She encounters Red Ribbon members who attempt to use vampire compulsion against her, trying to force her to kill another vampire and then herself. Rebecca fights back with her vampire-hunting equipment, including silver, but she is injured by a venomous attack. The venom spreads through her body and she becomes seriously ill. Aliz finds her and, rather than allowing her to die, uses her own vampire blood to heal the injury. The act saves Rebecca, but because it occurs during a full moon, something much more serious happens: the two accidentally create a blood contract.

The contract makes Rebecca Aliz's Familiar. A dark, thorned crescent-shaped mark appears on Rebecca's body, identifying the bond. Familiars are connected to their vampires through blood and magic, and the relationship can eventually affect the human's autonomy. Rebecca is horrified because she has not agreed to become anyone's Familiar, particularly not Aliz's. Aliz insists that she did not deliberately create the bond, and the two begin searching for a way to undo it. They learn that separating from one another is painful and can produce nightmares, hallucinations and other physical and psychological effects. The university's Night Dean, Faust Nocth, knows what has happened but tells them that the bond may have to run its course unless they can find another solution.

Rebecca and Aliz therefore become unwilling partners. They continue searching for the hidden library and researching the Familiar bond while being forced into increasing proximity. Rebecca's feelings toward Aliz begin changing as she sees more of her personality. Aliz is not simply the cruel vampire Rebecca expected. She protects Rebecca, helps her when she is injured, and repeatedly tries to control her own hunger around Rebecca's unusually attractive blood. Rebecca, meanwhile, starts questioning the idea that all vampires are inherently evil. The attraction between them becomes increasingly difficult for Rebecca to ignore.

They try to do research to figure out how to get out of the Familiar bond, but Nocth, the Night Dean of Tynahine, discovers what they are doing. He tells them that breaking the bond may not be possible and that they may have to let it run its course, but he allows them to continue searching for an answer. Nocth then asks Rebecca to stay behind after Aliz leaves. He already knows that Rebecca was sent to Tynahine by someone and tells her that Penny is not telling her the whole story. Nocth explains that Penny herself came to Tynahine eight years earlier and attempted to do essentially the same thing Rebecca is doing now: infiltrating the university and searching for the Book of Blood and Roses. However, Nocth says that Penny and the vampires are now allies, which makes Rebecca suspicious because Penny has never told her about her previous connection to Tynahine. Nocth ultimately lets Rebecca leave but warns her to be careful about who she trusts. Rebecca contacts Penny afterward to ask whether what Nocth told her is true, and Penny confirms that she did come to Tynahine eight years earlier and that she now works with the vampires. This makes Rebecca question what else Penny has been keeping from her and whether her assignment at Tynahine is really as straightforward as she was led to believe.

The situation becomes more dangerous when Rebecca's blood begins to affect Aliz more strongly. Rebecca has a rare blood type that is especially appealing to vampires, and the protective supplements she has been using eventually become insufficient. Aliz starts struggling with hunger and becomes frightened by how strongly she wants Rebecca's blood. Synthetic blood helps temporarily, but it does not completely eliminate the problem. The two are forced to confront the fact that the Familiar bond has connected not only their emotions but their physical needs.

Their investigation leads them to the Astra family's abandoned hunting lodge. There they discover information about Ada Astra, Aliz's dead older sister, and Catherine Lovelace, Ada's Familiar. The connection between Catherine and the Astra family is significant because it begins linking the history of the vampire family with the origins of Callisto. Rebecca starts realizing that the organization she works for may have a much closer relationship with the vampire world than she has been told. The discoveries also suggest that the mysterious library they are searching for may not be an ordinary physical library at all.

Rebecca and Aliz eventually find the hidden library. Instead of finding a normal room full of intact books, they encounter Ada's ghost. Ada explains that her knowledge has effectively become the library itself. Her research was destroyed, but she retained the information in her memory after death. The physical books Rebecca and Aliz search through crumble into dust, meaning that there is no ordinary copy of the Book of Blood and Roses for Rebecca to take back to Callisto. Ada reveals that the book's destruction was connected to Ares Astra, and that much of the knowledge Rebecca was sent to retrieve has survived only through Ada.

Ada also provides information about the Familiar bond. She tells Rebecca and Aliz that there is a way to break it, but the method is extremely violent. Under a full moon, the vampire and Familiar must consume the blood from an “eternal fountain,” meaning the heart of a vampire. The two therefore need to identify a vampire whose heart can be used to break the contract. Their search eventually focuses on Dr. Sven Gustavsson, one of Tynahine's professors.

Meanwhile, Rebecca's relationship with Aliz continues to change. The hostility between them gradually becomes attraction and then intimacy. Rebecca is increasingly torn between the person she has been trained to be and the person she is becoming at Tynahine. She has spent years thinking of vampires as monsters, but she is now falling in love with one. The Familiar bond complicates the romance because neither of them can completely determine how much of their attraction is coming from the magic. Nevertheless, the relationship becomes physical, and they eventually admit that they love each other.

The bond also causes frightening moments between them. Aliz accidentally compels Rebecca during an argument, demonstrating that the Familiar connection is affecting Rebecca's ability to resist vampire influence. Rebecca is terrified because free will is one of the things she has spent her entire life fighting to protect. Their relationship becomes strained further because Rebecca continues hiding her true identity from Aliz. She is still technically undercover and is still reporting to Penny, even though she is no longer certain that Callisto is telling her the truth.

Julia provides another important piece of the mystery. She tells Rebecca about how she became a vampire. Julia was caught up in a violent incident involving a hijacked London Underground train. Newly created vampires were imprisoned in silver cages and deliberately deprived of blood until they became “parched,” meaning dangerously starved and unable to control their hunger. Julia escaped. She identifies the people responsible through an insignia associated with the Vassals, another organization operating within the vampire world. Her story gives Rebecca another reason to suspect that the violence surrounding vampires is organized rather than simply the result of individual monsters acting independently.

Rebecca's suspicions become more serious when she attends a vampire blood party in Inverness. What is presented as an event becomes something much darker: humans are gathered and treated as prey. Rebecca sees vampires hunting and feeding on humans and realizes that the university's controlled environment is not representative of the entire vampire world. She tries to help the humans escape. During the chaos, she kills a vampire and manages to get away, but she is later captured. The experience reinforces the conflict inside her: she knows that some vampires are genuinely dangerous, but she also knows that Aliz, Ife and Julia are not the same as the vampires she has been trained to kill.

The Halloween Ball becomes the point where the various mysteries converge. Rebecca and Aliz intend to use the full moon and the event as an opportunity to break their Familiar bond. They also focus their attention on Gustavsson, whom they suspect is connected to the Vassals. Rebecca attempts to lure him into a vulnerable position, but Gustavsson reveals that he knows exactly who she is. Instead of calling her Cassie, he calls her Rebecca. He attacks her and uses compulsion against her, attempting to force her toward suicide. Aliz intervenes, and Rebecca manages to injure Gustavsson with silver, but he escapes by transforming into a bat.

Penny then appears, and Rebecca's remaining trust in her begins to collapse completely. Penny demands the Book of Blood and Roses and threatens Aliz in an attempt to force Rebecca to surrender it. Rebecca explains that she does not actually possess the book. Aliz confirms that the supposed library is not a physical collection of books that can be handed over. Penny responds violently, shooting Aliz with silver and attacking her with religious weapons before knocking Rebecca unconscious.

Rebecca eventually confronts Gustavsson in the hedge maze. He finally explains the truth behind her parents' deaths. Rebecca's parents were not simply random victims of a vampire attack. Their deaths were connected to Callisto's recruitment system. Gustavsson had been involved in recruiting and testing young women for Callisto, and the organization used trauma to create emotionally dependent hunters. Rebecca's parents were targeted because their deaths would leave Rebecca vulnerable to recruitment. The attack that killed them was part of a planned “Feast of the Parched,” in which starving newly created vampires were deliberately unleashed to massacre people. The Vassals were involved as well.

This means that Penny's promises to Rebecca have been built around a lie. Penny presented herself as the person who rescued Rebecca from the aftermath of her parents' deaths, but Callisto had benefited from the deaths and used Rebecca's grief to turn her into a hunter. Rebecca has spent years pursuing revenge against vampires without knowing that the organization guiding her revenge helped manufacture the circumstances that created her hatred in the first place.

Gustavsson continues taunting Rebecca with details about her mother's death. He attacks Rebecca and ultimately drives a stake through her body, leaving her badly injured and unable to escape. Aliz arrives before Gustavsson can finish killing her. She attacks him with a silver sword, decapitates him and removes his heart. Because the full moon is still in effect, Aliz uses Gustavsson's heart to complete the ritual that can break the Familiar contract. Rebecca consumes the vampire's blood from the heart, and the bond between her and Aliz finally breaks.

Once the contract is gone, Rebecca tells Aliz her real name. She is no longer pretending to be Cassie Smith with her. The revelation changes the nature of their relationship because they are finally capable of being together without the magical Familiar bond forcing them into proximity. Aliz has every reason to be angry that Rebecca lied to her, but she also recognizes that Rebecca was operating under orders and was manipulated by Callisto.

After Gustavsson's death, Tynahine is thrown into chaos. The official story treats Gustavsson as a rogue vampire who attacked a human student, while the administration and the vampire authorities begin dealing with the political consequences. Nocth questions Rebecca about what happened and learns that she used Gustavsson's heart to break the Familiar bond. Rebecca does not hide what she did.

Rebecca is now forced to decide what to do with everything she has learned. She no longer accepts Callisto's version of the world, because she knows the organization manipulated her grief and used her parents' deaths as part of its recruitment strategy. She also knows that vampires cannot simply be divided into “good” and “bad” based on whether they are vampires. She has friends who are vampires, loves a vampire, and has seen both human and vampire groups commit atrocities. She therefore decides that she is finished allowing Callisto to dictate who her enemies are.

Rebecca stays at Tynahine rather than immediately returning to Callisto. Aliz is separated from her for a period after the events and a subsequent Council hearing, leaving Rebecca uncertain about what will happen between them now that the Familiar bond is gone. Aliz eventually returns from Hungary and explains that she struggled to communicate after everything that happened and had only recently regained access to her phone. They meet again on the roof, where Rebecca admits the extent of her deception and Aliz makes it clear that her feelings for Rebecca remain even without the magical bond. Their relationship therefore continues because they choose each other rather than because the Familiar contract requires it.