Loved the historical setting and the general concept of vampirism (or reapers, as this book calls them). In some ways, it made me think of Dread Nation, although that was quite a bit darker/heavier than this book.

Writing was extremely vibes-heavy; I think you could describe most of the important plot points boiled down into a short list, with most of the on-page text dealing with character emotions, backstory, parties, outfits, sex scenes, murders, etc. Lots of 1920s gangsters and NYC vibes. I did find a lot of the dealings with Elise’s father and the conflict with Layla to be repetitive; by halfway through the book I felt like they were just going through the same motions over and over. I’m still not really sure why Elise’s father is so protective of his family & legacy but hates Elise, nor do I really understand how Layla (and Elise??) both blame Elise for reapers killing Layla’s family. At one point Layla points out that she’s made a new family with the reapers even though they are literally the ones who murdered her family so why should she hate the Saints more but it feels like we never delved into that further. Lastly, I truly don’t understand Sterling’s character. What was the point of him? Why all that build up just to have him completely change everything about himself 70% of the way in??

I did think the romance plot, which was dominate, felt well developed. I don’t get why these two held the specific grudges that they did but if you just accept that, then slowly overcoming those obstacles made some amount of sense. I did feel like the reaper venom issue clouded things and I’m actually sure that Elise was in her right mind to consent to some of what was happening, which does put a damper on the quick switch between the two of them. But the relationship is already pretty messy so it fits.

I would recommend this for fans of A Tempest of Tea.

This was such a unique concept! I really wanted to love this book with its prohibition and mobster style spin on human vs. vampires but it was a pretty slow read and I found that while I did like it I just didn’t love it and really wanted a bit more excitement.

Sapphic vampires in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance? Yes, please!

This was such an awesome book and I loved the vampire (well, reaper in this case but one and the same) dynamic with the tensions between them and humans, specifically the wealthy families in charge of a lot of the local economy and entertainment scene. This is a legit enemies-to-lovers where the definitely think about and try killing each other. The tensions are high and the action nonstop as murders are continuously pinned on Layla, who as a reaper is found in places that link her to the murders yet she doesn't remember them. Elise is tasked in working with Layla on the mystery before she is told to kill her by her controlling father who is deep in not only bankrolling a lot of the local area, but also deep within it's crime too.

Elise and Layla's story is full of pain, suffering, and pining as they try and avoid each other due to each other's involvement in death, but they just can't seem to stop thinking about and pining after each other. There's history between them that demands to be remembered and they will have to overcome it to get to the bottom of all of the murders.

This was an enjoyable read with a unique spin that I think historical fantasy fans will love!

This was a fine story. It took awhile for me to figure out the timeframe because some things seemed out of place what the time period I thought it was set in. There is a larger cast of characters but we focus on primarily 2 FMCs. I’m not sure I was convinced of them not liking each other nor of their love. It felt more like we were just told and not shown. I’m undecided if I will continue when the next book comes out.

I wanted to love love loveeeeee this book. The premise is vampires set in 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance with a touch of race and class issues. it's marketed as sapphic angsty enemies-to-lovers with mystery and romance and fell flat.

my favorite part of the story was the absolutely the setting and the atmosphere. it was dark and beautiful. but i wish i had more in the book that made me feel like i was THERE.

the story, however, was so so so slow. it felt like not a lot happened for a while. i'm giving it 3 stars because the last 10-15% were exciting enough, otherwise it would have been a 2.5. the writing style was inconsistent through the book and it made it hard to really get into the book.

thank you to netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book just fulfills the need for female rage so well. Black queer vampires in the 1920s what more could a girl as for.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with the ARC for this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

I enjoyed this story but what's not to love about a sapphic vampire love story. I'm not sure if Layla or Elise were bisexual or lesbian but either way they were awesome. I did feel like their relationship wasn't built up enough though to go from enemies to lovers. For half the story I almost thought that I was wrong and that Layla and Elise weren't endgame (there's a few vampire stories coming out around the same time so I thought I mixed up my stories). Neither of them seemed to have any feelings for each other besides animosity. Neither of them in their POV's even alluded to the fact that they felt anything other than friendship for one another. I think the only sign I saw was that Layla was jealous of Sterling being close to Elise but that could have been interpreted as her being jealous as a friend. It felt like all of their feelings for each other only came out AFTER Layla bit Elise and that made me feel like Elise was only enthralled by Layla's venom from her bite.

I was also very upset when the only asian character in the book was killed off not only by her best friend (Layla) but in the most gruesome way possible. I was so excited for her when she was turned into a human because I wanted her to be able to go find her family. Then she was literally torn to shreds and I can't forgive that.

The only other part that I didn't like was how quickly Sterling turned on Elise. They're supposed to be best friends. They seemed to have this really strong bond and yet... Sterling threw all of that away? He was so worried for Elise the whole story and when he flipped suddenly to her dad's side it just felt wrong. I didn't care for that part.

I'm not sure if I'm going to read the second novel when it comes out (because it does end on a bit of a cliffhanger) but we'll see.

I came across this author on instagram and was so excited when I was approved for an ARC of This Ravenous Fate. The book starts off with a lot of excitement, but unfortunately the pacing slows way down at about 25%. I found it hard to be excited to get back to reading this book. Usually when I’m enjoying a book, I pick it up as often as I can but that was not the case this time. I really enjoyed Elise and Layla’s characters, but felt like their backstory wasn’t delivered early enough to make their relationship/interactions interesting. Most of the other characters felt sort of lack luster for me, their motives and decisions were hard to follow. So much happened in the last 5-10% of the book that it felt like the book ended in the middle of the book. It did not feel as if the conflicts were resolved and more problems were created. Overall, I enjoyed the book and found the premise of the book to be very intriguing. The pacing was my main issue because there were too many long stretches where it felt like nothing important was happening.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read an ARC of This Ravenous Fate!

Very entertaining... Set in the 1920's with Vampires. Anything with Vampires immediately get my attention. This is a new to me author. I would have preferred more action and some points in the book were slow and seemed to drag.

I have to be honest I made it 60% of the way before I realized I didn't really care what happened. For me, it felt like there was SO much packed into the book that it made it hard for me to really sympathize with any characters, The primary plot of trying to solve the murder mystery was great, I did like the childhood friends to enemies to lovers storyline, I thought it was set up really well and the moments of tension were there but the book as an entity just didn't grab me. I kept reading however because I really, really , REALLY wanted to love this book.

3.75 Stars

A riveting and blood-soaked vampire tale set in 1920s Jazz Age Harlem, starring two queer black women who need to overcome their fraught past to try to save those they love most.

As soon as I had read the synopsis for this book, this was INSTANTLY on my radar and I knew I had to snag a copy as soon as I could. The second I started reading this, I was hooked into the story and finished this during only two reading sessions, since I had to know where the plot was going.

We star Elise Saint, the heir to an empire dedicated to eradicating vampires (called reapers) within Harlem, and the world as a whole. And on the opposing side, we have Layla, one of those very same reapers who has sworn vengeance against Elise and her family for being the very cause of her change to a bloodthirsty creature. They have to fight through their past betrayals, current loyalties, and ongoing hatred and feuds to try to uncover a deadly plot that will have far-reaching consequences - not just for reapers, but the United States as a whole.

I loved the descriptions in this book, and really felt like you could get a real sense of the world around the characters. The placement felt real and grounded, and the worldbuilding created was in-depth and had layers. Getting a glimpse into the life of Elise Saint, who has lived her life essentially with a silver spoon in her mouth thanks to the steel her father makes that can kill reapers, and the empire he built around them. This privilege almost protects her from the racism of the world around them, as she has enough money to generally go and do whatever she wishes. On the other hand, we have Layla, who after her violent turning no longer has these same privileges - and yet, her strength as a reaper also, in a way shields her from much of the racist violence in their world. And yet, it’s Layla who is more in-tune with noticing this double-standard, since she can’t simply kill anyone she desires whenever she feels like it.

This novel had a wide array of characters within it, but as a whole I don’t think it was too difficult to keep track of them all. Each one had their own unique characterization and plot, so (as someone who gets easily confused when there’s a lot of characters to keep track of) following along to the plot and each character wasn’t difficult. Also, I was surprised by how much I loved Jamie as a character, and I really hope he continues to be a big supporting character in the next book.

The only pitfall I noticed while reading is that there were a few spots where I thought the conversations between the characters to be a bit rough, as well as a few plot points/character actions that didn’t fully make sense. There were a few times where character conversations felt too much like plot narrations, and not an actual conversation, that when I got to them I found a bit distracting. As well, there were a few times where a character would do something that I didn’t think quite made sense, or where their decision to do such a thing seemed to come out of nowhere as a plot device to move the story along. However, none of these things were overly distracting, and to be completely honest were not any worse than in any debut novel.

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Sourcebooks Fire for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank-you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the arc. Black, sapphic, enemies to lovers, set in Harlem, in the 20s. I was so excited for this and sadly it didn't measure up to my expectations. It's an interesting read overall, but it's very slow paced and it felt longer than it was because of that. The world building was also weak, something I hope will be fleshed out more in the sequel. And the ending was very rushed. Together that made the climax unsatisfying.

There is a lot of potential here, I quite liked the characters, it just didn't all come together for me. If the elements were better executed this could have been great. Given that it's a debut, I’m interested to read the sequel. My hope is to see this author grow because it's all there, it just needed more work.

I really hope that Hayley Dennings will come back and blow me out of the water with the sequel.

This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings is a lush and evocative fantasy set in Jazz Age Harlem in an alternative timeline where vampires, or Reapers as they are called here are real and on the rise. Elise Saint is eighteen, newly from school in Paris and the reluctant heir to the Saint empire which has been built on reaper hunting. Spurred on by the death pf his oldest daughter at the hands pf a reaper, Elise's father is determined to rid the city of the monsters at any cost. Of course the Harlem reapers are not going to take this lying down, especially not Layla Quinn . Before she turned five years ago she was Elise's best friend, practically another daughter to the family but now she has lost everyone she was ever close to. As rumors of a cure start to surface and bodies of reapers turned human again start to appear in the city morgues Layla and Elise are forced to work together to figure out what is going on .
I really enjoyed thisbook, I loved the setting, the author did an incredible job in transporting me as a reader to another time and place. The pacing is quite fast and there is not a lot of lore or info dumping , in fact I wish there had been just a little more of an explanation about the history of the reapers, but since this is the first book in a planned duology perhaps that will be explored more in the next book. The characters are engaging, initially I found myself connecting more with Elise but very quickly I grew to love Layla too, I enjoyed the friends to enemies to reluctant colleagues to lovers dynamics of their relationship, and I thought the author did a wonderful job of threading the needle between love and hate at times. I also really appreciated that the author gave Elise OCD and thought it was well handled and made sense in the context of her past trauma.. Race plays a key role in this book and there were several interesting allegories comparing how Reapers and Black citizens were treated. To quote Layla "I will never be grateful for being treated like a second class citizen, or barely human. "... " But there was nothing lucky about being forced to assimilate just for a chance of being given rights that you already deserved in the first place. ...there was nothing lucky about only being acknowledged while you are on your knees." I found that this really added another dimension to the story and made me think while I was reading.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

3.5⭐️ thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This Ravenous Fate is about ex best friends Elise (the daughter of an infamous vampire hunter) and Layla (a vampire turned against her will). They have to work together to uncover secrets surrounding a vampirism cure. This is a classic enemies to lovers YA book, and while the pacing was very fast, I didn’t think this book needed to be any longer. I think the story would have benefited a bit from some more world building surrounding vampirism, how they came to be, how they survive in this world where they’re hated, etc. I liked how we slowly uncovered the two FMC’s past, and how Sterling factored into their history.

There were a few plot holes that made me go “hmm that didn’t make sense” and the mystery factor was not surprising at all. I hated the father and mother, and I still don’t know what happened to Layla’s family. This felt like two
books in one, but I did enjoy the overarching plotline, and the ending seems to have set the next book up pretty well! Recommending to anyone who wants an easy-to-read sapphic enemies to lovers YA romantasy

If the movie Warm Bodies had a baby with Alberta from the show Ghosts you would probably get this book. Or something, anyway.

I am always looking for new vampire stories and chasing the high of a rare Historical Fiction book that catches my attention. The Ravenous Fate is very atmospheric and at times fast paced. It's a really unique take on vampires as well. No offense to the Interview With a Vampire show, but this book would make a (better) binge worthy show.


Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with a review copy.

The premise was so good, but it missed the mark a few ways. The world building was rough to get through...between gangs and vampires and humans. there was just so much going on. I did enjoy the characters, they had depth and it was easy to root for them. i wanted to love this, but it was hard to get through.

Amongst the glitz and glam of 1920s Harlem, darker things lurk in the shadows. While Harlem is fought over by the gangs who run the glamorous jazz clubs and speakeasies in the area, even they are afraid of the reaper clans that stalk the night. Reapers are vampiric creatures who were born from cruel medical experiments conducted in the 17th century. These clans now plague America and have begun to spread across the rest of the world. The Harlem reapers are only kept in check by the Saints, a reaper-hunting empire who manufacture the only bullets that are effective against them.

When a wave of mysterious killings shocks the city, the number one suspect is Layla Quinn who was once the best friend of Elise Saint. That is until she was turned into a reaper and tried to rip open Elise’s chest. Elise, hoping to be granted the title of heir to her family’s legacy to spare her younger sister, is tasked by her father to investigate the killings and get to the bottom of Layla’s involvement. However once Elise and Layla begin working together, they uncover discrepancies around the case. And uncover a mystery around reapers turning more deadly—and possibly back into humans.
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I am a massive fan of slow burn romance, and I will say this delivered. Elise and Layla have a friends-to-enemies-to-reluctant allies-to-lovers relationship which is my favorite. There was some delicious tension and push-and-pull scenes. I also loved their dynamic being musician and dancer, I really wish we had gotten at least one scene of Layla dancing to Elise’s playing. I enjoyed Layla’s POV more than Elise’s but that might be due to have much of a sucker I am for jaded scandalous vampires. I really liked how Layla was not afraid to call of Elise’s prejudices and sheltered opinions. But the inclusion of Elise having OCD was a nice touch that helped flesh out her character.

Despite enjoying the romance, the rest of the plot really fell flat for me. The greatest weakness of this novel is a lack of descriptive imagery. Despite the glamourous and dark setting, none of the scenes truly popped off the page. It was incredibly difficult to immerse oneself into the scenes playing out and it left me wanting so much more. This lack of description paired with overly clunky writing left huge gaps in the story. It often felt as though we were skipping around and jumping over large details. It was difficult to follow along because of this and ruined any kind of flow in the story.

The entire mystery plot was lacking in suspense and buildup. Readers could generally guess what the twist was going to be early on, and the villains themselves were very one dimensional and obvious. Mr. Saint was the biggest let down. At first, the way he switches his moods and demeanor was really chilling as it denoted a level of instability. But the further we got in, the more the contradictory nature of his personality began to shift from his characterization to being clearly a product of the author’s weak writing. Elise was tasked by her father to investigate the killings with Layla and unravel her lies. However, at every turn he was incredibly hostile about their partnership and tried to shut her down constantly when she asked too many questions. It’s obvious that he did not want Elise to truly investigate the crime and simply wanted her to implicate Layla. But Layla had already been arrested for the crime at the beginning of the novel so why not just pin it all on her? There was no reason to allow Elise to begin poking around where she shouldn’t and unravel the bigger scheme around the crimes.

Also, the entire last 50 pages of this book had so many new elements and plot points thrown in out of nowhere. There was simply not enough time for readers to understand them or to set them up properly for the sequel. It was way too rushed and cramped and I felt like I couldn't quite grasp what was going on.

I wish I had loved this more as the pitch was everything I’ve ever wanted in a book. But the execution fell short of my expectations. I may tune into the sequel simply for the romance, but I hope with more experience the plot will be better developed and the world building can be expanded.

I didn't hate this book, but I didn't really like it either.

For the majority of the book, I was bored and it didn't grab my attention at all. It felt so long and I do think there could've been 100 pages less. Now the mystery wasn't that mysterious to me. This might also be the reason why I found the book a bit boring. As a reader, I wish I could've helped with solving the mystery, but there wasn't really much to solve myself.

I did love the romance. It's rare that I see something advertised as enemies to lovers and the love interests actually hate each other, and are technically enemies. I do wish they "fell" for each other earlier since they did go from enemies to lovers really quickly.

This book might be worth the read if you're into vampires (especially wlw, enemies to lovers, vampires)

Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review

This book is SUCH a vibe! The mysteries and the vampires are top tier, and I loooove all things open sexually. While this one was a bit slower, I really loved the relationship between Elyse and Layla. I am very excited to see what Hayley comes up with next!

THIS RAVENOUS FATE follows childhood-friends-to-enemies, Elise—heir to a vampire-hunting empire—and Layla—vampire—as they work together to solve a murder, and how it might be involved with a potential cure for vampirism.

This YA historical fantasy, set in an alternate 1920s Harlem that's overcome by vampires, is for readers who enjoy VIBES. The pretty prose dedicates itself to those delicious enemies to lovers moments, and the first act tension between the two alternating POVs who have very different interpretations of the same traumatic event, is where the book shines.

The short chapters comprised of micro-scenes make for a fast read, full of complex family dynamics and ethical questions.