Trade Paperback; 320 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (May 27, 2010)
ISBN-10: 190741021X
ISBN-13: 9781907410215
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy
Book: Book one in the Chronicles of Nick series
Main Characters: Nick Gautier
On sale at: The Book Depository

SUMMARY
At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough, and savvy, Nick and his quick sarcasm are the stuff of legend... until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil covering a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead. But before Nick can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh-eating zombies. And he's next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough... now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chain saw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

REVIEW
It's been a while since I last read a novel by the hand of Ms. Kenyon, in all honesty I found that the Dark Hunter/Were Hunter/Dream Hunter world became a bit complex and due to said complexity, I lost interest because the last few novels were not up to standard and didn't hold it's quality I'm used to. So when I heard about the Chronicles of Nick I won't repeat my train of thoughts about it, because it's best not be repeated. However my sister got her hands on the novel and told me that I might actually enjoy it. So she brought it over for me to borrow and after I read the first 3 pages I was hooked onto it and finished reading it in a flash.

As it's a young adult, and Nick is a young adult himself, the problems he faces are a bit more basic bound and teenage material, but Sherrilyn is comfortable in her writing and able to put his pre-adult years to paper in a convincing and enjoyable way. Some of his feelings are described a bit adult-like in my opinion, but it can be rationally explained, due to the fact that he grew up between strippers and an adult style of life facing mature problems.

I absolutely loved the fact we were brought back to New Orleans, which in my opinion is the homebase of the Dark Hunters and has a certain feel to the world-build-up due to all it's lore. I felt later on in the series I actually started missing New Orleans, so this series makes up for that! Old characters come to pass in their previous way of life, Kyrian still being a Dark Hunter, Acheron, Simi, Tabitha and other squires come to pass in their unique way of being. It was something that really added to the reading experience, and I think that is what makes it an interesting and fun read for those not really into Young Adult-series.

The topic of Zombies is not one of my favourite reads but the combination of Zombies with teens made it work. It's a fast-paced, entertaining read where things once more twist and turn around in the Dark Hunter world as we know it, but as far as I can tell at this stage I think these changes are for the better instead of the worse! Some storylines in this novel seem to not add up to the series as we know it, but again towards the end of this particular read it all is set up really well and all falls into place, so if you come across a few anomalities, don't worry keep reading and be surprised!

I think the 'ick' factor works really well for young adults, there were times where I as an adult thought: “oh no, so way gross!!!” I could have done without it, and it being described a bit less icky but I forgave that because I knew it's a YA-series. I absolutely adored Bubba and Mark and their 'zombie-hunting' ways. They were compelling and funny to read about.

There lingers a misconception that the Chronicles of Nick are a prequal to the Dark Hunter Series, I think it's not. It's interwoven into the series and some plotlines are changing and explained as such in between the lines, so therefor I think that, if you are unfamiliar to the Dark Hunter world, it might not be wise to start reading this novel, and on the other hand, it can be read as a new starting series because these are written as Chronicles. So the unexplained might be left open till it's explained in a later novel.

Nick as a character in the Dark Hunter novels never stood out to me, but he actually scored some positive points in this novel and I'm looking forward to reading on in this series. It was great to see his witty sarcasm and I'm truly hoping these chronicles will progress in the way I'm thinking it will, because if it does, I think it will be a climactic change in the Dark Hunter world. But let's not get too carried away and see where the second novel in this series will lead us, this one left us with quite a great ending, which I'm curious to see how it will be picked up in the next installment.

4 Stars