Spirit Bound

Spirit Bound (2010) is written by bestselling American author Richelle Mead. The author of several popular fantasy series, Spirit Bound is the penultimate book in the “Vampire Academy” series, which follows a teenager’s journey through a school where she learns how to be a responsible vampire. The series has sold more than 10 million copies around the world and was adapted into a major motion picture in 2014. Mead began writing “Vampire Academy” in her spare time as a middle-school social studies teacher.

Its themes include romantic love, miscommunication, and loyalty.

Spirit Bound opens to the protagonist, 19-year-old Rosemarie "Rose" Hathaway, receiving a letter (just weeks before major exams) from her former lover, 24-year-old Dimitri Belikov. The letter is peculiar for its outpouring of love mixed with death threats.



From the previous four books, the reader has learned that in this world, “dhampirs” (half-human, half-vampire) are creatures sworn to take down the evil “strigoi” (undead vampires). Rose is a “guardian” in training. One of the entities she is sworn to protect is princess Vasilisa “Lissa” Dragomir. Princess Lissa is Moroi, meaning she’s technically a spirit/ghost. Throughout the series, Lissa remains her best friend. Lissa’s ability to bring the dead to life and to rapidly heal wounds becomes very handy throughout the series.

She learns a combination of martial arts, strigoi studies, and military reconnaissance at St. Vladimir’s Academy in Montana. The first book describes her attraction to her instructor, Dimitri Belikov, and their eventual pairing as girlfriend and boyfriend (even as school rules prohibit this). In Frostbite, Rose kills her first two strigoi. In the third book, Shadow Kiss, she kills more strigoi and chases Dimitri to Siberia, where she believes he would have fled after a severe combat with the enemy (fortunately she took Russian 2 at Vladimir’s Academy). In Blood Promise, she discovers the unfortunate fact that Dimitri has turned into a strigoi after a conflict with Lissa. This means she now has to kill him. Against her will, she stakes him and leaves him for dead.

In this context, Dimitri’s paradoxical letter in the beginning of Spirit Bound makes a lot more sense. Understandably, Dimitri wants revenge on Rose for attempted murder.



Rose is weary of his threats, but doesn’t believe Dimitri would really kill her; besides, she has stumbled across some ancient writings that suggest there’s a way to turn him back from a strigoi into a dhampir.

To enact this secret knowledge, Rose must overcome a series of obstacles. First, she and Lissa have to break into a vampire prison to free Victor Dashkov, a kind, older man who has knowledge of the mysterious spirit who can turn strigoi into their original form. With the help of Rose’s good friend, Edison “Eddie” Castile, they free Victor.

In gratitude, Victor says he’ll lead them to his half-brother, Robert Doru. Robert tells the group that the secret transformation formula is for the person who caused the switch in the first place to use a stake to stab—again—the specified strigoi. In this case, that person is Princess Lissa.



Meanwhile, Dimitri has been hard at work figuring out ways to lure Rose into a dangerous situation. He successfully kidnaps Lissa and her boyfriend, Christian Ozera, knowing that wherever they are held Rose will soon follow.

Rose, ever fearless, recruits a group of fellow guardians to raid Dimitri’s hiding place and rescue her best friends. They successfully breach past his defenses, and Rose is about to kill him in a fit of rage when Christian and Lissa stop her to complete the transformation ritual. Christian draws a ring of fire around a supine Dimitri while Lissa stabs him in the heart with a stake. Suddenly, Dimitri returns to his original form as a dhampir.

With so much attempted murder, it makes sense that Rose and Dimitri should feel ambivalence over continuing their relationship. They talk until two in the morning.



The next day, Rose and Dimitri see each other at breakfast. Hesitantly, they talk about the misunderstandings in their relationship. It soon becomes clear that despite their respective transgressions, the two still love each other.

Then out of nowhere, a group of elite Guardians surround Rose. Neither Rose nor Dimitri know why they’re being the targets of such an aggressive attack, and Dimitri stands in front of her, willing to lay down his life for her continued survival. The head Guardian declares that their Queen, Tatiana, was murdered. The only clue they have as to the perpetrator is a stake lodged inside the dear queen’s heart. The stake belongs to Rose.

Spirit Bound ends with the cliffhanger of Rose and Dimitri under arrest. The final book in the series, Last Sacrifice, reveals that Tasha Ozera (Christian’s aunt) actually killed Queen Tatiana for political reasons. She framed Rose for the murder because she was deeply envious of Rose for scoring the handsome Dimitri. “Vampire Academy” ends with Tasha in jail, Lissa becoming their new Queen, and Dmitri and Rose living happily ever after.