House of Night Series - Books 1 & 2

While everyone else is getting over the glut of teen vampire novels I am continuing to devour them.
I bought the first book in the House of Night series a good while ago because it was cheap and I was having Twilight withdrawals. I didn't actually get around to reading it until now, after hearing a colleague say she could read one in a night. I am on the look out for easy reads to boost the number of books I've read. (I have to make up for a disastrous May).

I didn't read it in a night, but it was pretty close. I quite enjoy the new take on vampires in this series - they become marked and the change process takes a long time. They don't burn up in the sun, but it does hurt their
eyes and skin. They still eat "normal" food. They are governed by a goddess and don't go around biting people so much. I think that's what I enjoy about all these vampire novels - that authors aren't content with the
traditional ideas about what a vampire is and does, and they create their own.

In this series, teenagers are chosen and marked to become vampires. They then have to make their way to The house of night, a school for fledgling vampires. If they don't, they become sick and die. Being at the school is no guarantee that they will survive the change either. At the school, classes are reversed, starting at 8pm at night and finishing at 3am. They learn vampire lore and about famous vamps. Apparently all the great actors, writers and artists are really vampires. Zoey is descendent from Cherokee Indians and already has some spiritual connection to the goddess when she enters the school. She becomes firm friends with a group of other fledglings and spends time trying to avoid Aphrodite, the leader of a clique called the dark daughters and sons. Zoey just wants to fit in, but from the outset she's different. Her mark is filled in, where all the other
fledglings have just an outline.

I quite enjoyed part 1 of the series. Book 2 - Betrayed was ok and follows on a month after the events in the first book. The authors seem to make up words which really started to bug me in the second book. Gihugic??? Ginormic?? I could deal with ginormous... and use that quite often but those two words are just wrong, they don't roll of the tongue.
I like how the friendship between Zoey and her friends is being developed. It looks like the single characters are slowly pairing off.
The authors also seem to have an idea where the story will go, as there are lead up clues woven into the story. I read somewhere that there will be 12 books in the series and it's up to book 7 at the moment. So I still have
some reading ahead of me!