Lenobia's Vow: Book Review

5/5 Stars

Lenobia's Vow (Novella)
House of Night Series
By P.C. Cast
St Martin's Press (January 31, 2012)

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

This story follows Lenobia, a horse mistress at the House of  Night Zoey is attending.  It takes place in the 1700's when Lenobia is but a teenager herself.  We discover she is a bastard child living on her father's estate as a servant girl.  Her mother is a very beautiful woman with grey eyes like her and her father desired her so much he had her brought from England to become his mistress.  There is much resentment from his real family towards Lenobia and her mother, and it doesn't help she bears a striking unmistakable resemblance to her half sister.  Her half sister that just fell ill and died, and no one outside of the property knows of yet.
Lenobia is pulled aside by her mother and told to flee the estate, away from a family that looks at her with disdain and a priest that looks at her in a very unpriestly manor.  There is a carriage about to arrive to take Cecile (Lenobia's half sister) to the docks, from the docks to a grand ship, and from that ship to the New World, New Orleans. Here Cecile's new husband awaits. Reluctantly Lenobia agrees to assume Cecile's life.   When the carriage arrives it dawns on Lenobia this the last time she will ever see her mother, and with a tearful goodbye they depart. Lenobia heads towards her new fake life; remembering her mother's words to be Cecile not to become Cecile. Now the only thing left to do is not get caught on the 8 week voyage to New Orleans.  But what Lenobia doesn't know is that something sinister is about to board the ship with her, and her life is going to change entirely in the most unexpected way.

Lenobia's Vow was a very quick read and not just because it's a novella.  It gives a little bit of background on Lenobia, one of Zoey's favourite teachers, and what had happened to her.  I would read this after you have caught up in the series because it gives background to her scars and also why she is so reluctant to fall in love, especially with a human.  If you love the series, and you like Lenobia's character, dive in! It's well written and a quick easy read.  The style in which it is written is a little different from her other books, but I think that it gives more character from Lenobia's perspective, and there is quite a bit of French text in it.  Most of it is repeated in English after they say it, and I was able to translate some of it myself (since I'm Canadian and they teach us french and I actually chose to learn it instead of staring at the ceiling not listening), but for those of you qui n'a pas etudier francais, you might want to google some of the words if it bothers you that much.