Overall, I enjoyed this. Some parts were better than others and I wished the book didn’t spend as much time on Octavia. I would’ve preferred to spend that time with Tess and Callum. The ending was rushed and the fact that callum abandoned Tess was not flushed out enough.

Vampires!!!!! Are back. This book filled my “what we do in the shadows” obsession. Every character was unique and special they also went through an incredible journey from beginning to end. Incredible read.

3.5. I didn't like this as much as Kate Stayman-London's debut--it's fun, but the writing feels repetitive in places. The insta-love romance between Callum and Tess is fairly cheesy and surface-level, despite the circumstances leading up to it; I wish we had gotten more from Joni and Octavia, as I found them a much more balanced, intriguing couple. I did find it entertaining, though, and I found a lot of value in the way Tess works through her PSTD and trauma recovery.

Fang Fiction is such a fun read! We start with some serious stuff- sexual assault. A core theme of the novel is dealing with that trauma and putting yourself back together. Knowing that, you may be surprised that I did indeed call it a fun read. Post trauma Tess has gone full blown hermit. In addition to working nights at a random hotel she spends most of her time comfort reading her favorite vampire novels. She's in so deep she has a viral following for her vampires are real conspiracy theory. Imagine her surprise when someone comes looking for her to help the very real vampires from her favorite stories free themselves of the isle where they are trapped. On the isle Tess must confront what she thinks she knows and learn to be the hero in her own story.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Random House- Dial Press Trade Paperback and NetGalley for this eARC!

Super cute book. The MC's trauma was handled with respect and care. I really enjoyed reading it. Would definitely recommend other people I know read it as well.

I had so much fun with the plot and I loved the mixed media throughout the book. I feel like the pacing could have been a bit quicker and the book a little shorter. I struggled a little with the romance part of this story because I felt like I barely knew Callum, I feel like we could have used more time in his his head to know him better and feel more invested in their romance.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 400 / Genre: Vampire Fantasy
Release Day: October 1, 2024

Tess and Joni are huge fans of a vampire series called Blood Feud. Fans of this series are known as Feudies and are obsessed with it to the point that some believe that the characters in the books are based on vampires that exist for real.

Semi-spoiler alert—they do exist and they live in an alternate plane called the Isle. Tess is contacted by one of the vampires and is sent to the Isle on a mission. She gets to meet all the vampires she’s been obsessing over. She also has some past trauma caused by an assault that this mission helps her address and finally face instead of running from. So there is a sexual assault but they don’t get too graphic about it. It’s just enough to explain her strange behavior and fire you up for when she finally starts fighting for herself.

This book really has it all. Sex, violence, girl power, and vampires! I loved it.

Thank you, @KateStaymanLondon, @RandomHouse, and @NetGalley for my gifted copy.

I loved the characters. They had so much personality, especially the main character, who was refreshingly relatable in her sarcasm and awkwardness. And can we talk about the romance? It wasn’t over the top but it still had me rooting for them the whole way.

gahhhhh i love vampires so much!!! as a vampires connoisseur this book fed my fangirl vampy heart, and it was such a great campy paranormal romance and i'm just so giddy about it

i was blown away by the author's world building and her own take on vampire lore, which i always find so fun to read an author's iteration of the myth. i was captivated by the plot, the romances (there are TWO hehe) and the fun multi-media sprinkled in! this book truly captured the heart of fandom culture and it was just such a great experience! it can't get any better than hot vampires!!!

please check CW before reading as it does cover SA and being an SA survivor. the author handled these topics with such care and it was so moving to see our fmc tess reclaim her future and it got me emotional at times! i loved the conversations surrounding consent and bodily autonomy and how it's conveyed in both the mortal and paranormal world. ugh i just love tess and her courage and her will to survive so much, she was the perfect fangirl fmc for this fangirl to read about.

thank you so much Dial Press for this eARC, it's available everywhere now!

I found this read so fun, original, quirky, cute, funny…. I loved it! If you’re an AO3, Twilight, Buffy, conspiracy theory (only fun ones!), or romance lover, this book is RIGHT UP YOUR ALLEY! And if you’re not, you still have to read it because it’s great.

The main characters, Tess and Joni, are a delight. They are funny, warm, struggling in such a real way (be aware of SA triggers), working through friendship struggles… I love following them while they experienced their “Twilight come to life” fantasy! Them, plus the love interests and secondary friends, had such great dialogue and banter… I couldn’t put the book down!

The plot is wholly original here and it has such great additions. The chapter “starts” being podcast clips, Reddit threads, text exchanges, etc. was so fun and engaging, I loved it. A modern world with classic romance… just right!

I also want to take these Buzzfeed quiz to find out with Blood Feud lover is right for me… but if I get Felix, I’m breaking my phone.

First, thank you NetGalley, the publisher & author for an eARC of this book! I was SO intrigued when I read the synopsis and am happy to say it held up!

The concept is super fun: vampire novels that have a huge fandom that happen to actually be real vampires?! My head instantly started spinning and thinking about all my favorite fantasy fandoms and what I would do if they were real!
The vampires, the witches, the magic was all super enthralling and I honestly could picture each and every scene in my head while reading.
There’s love, betrayal, LGBTQ representation, but there is also slight mentions of rape/sexual assault which the author gives a trigger warning for in the beginning of the book.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

A little disappointed in this one. I was so intrigued by the plot, but I think it was very rushed. Lacked world-building for a fantasy and insta-love is ick. It was very modern which is a fun twist but annoying. I love the SA awareness, inclusion, and feminist ideals but they were a bit too much at times like I get it. I love the plot ideas of Kate Staymann-London books, but I think I need to go into it looking more for a quick, lighthearted and cheesy read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC! This book was like a love letter to fandom. A woman named Tess is obsessed with a vampire book series that’s been a comforting presence in her life amid trauma. One day she is approached by a character from said series and gets the opportunity to travel to a mystical isle. This book was great, it was a fast read and the romance gave me butterflies. It felt slightly campy but I think that was intentional to evoke the feeling of when fandoms were super big during the Twilight era. And I was living for it, it was what I needed.

Possibly spoilery; proceed with caution.

Tess works nights at a boutique hotel in Brooklyn after giving up her beloved graduate studies. Why? Because one of the other students in the program assaulted her and she retreated from her entire life due to anxiety and PTSD. She gave up her school, apartment, and friends, seeking no help.

Oh! She’s also super into these vampire novels that are all the rage, Blood Feud!

There’s an online community for these ridiculously popular books that believes the stories are real, that vampires are living among us. Conspiracies abound!

Tess wonders if they might be true.

Soon enough Tess finds out.

The villain vampire, Callum, is stuck and, through a series of events, only she can save him. She ends up on a sunless island fending off hungry vampires as well as a sexy one who might be falling for her.

There’s a second plot involving Tess’ best friend Joni and Callum’s sister Octavia, lesbians in love, and yes, the coincidence feels…convenient.

What a weird book.

Marketed as a sexy vampire romance, it felt more…troubling. The instigating incident is an assault (later identified as r*pe) that leaves the FMC retreating entirely from her once vibrant life, seeking no help professionally or even through friends. Throughout the book - the silly romps through the countryside and teleporting portals and eye batting flirting - I kept wondering how and when the assault would be dealt with (the epilogue, fyi). In fact, Callum and Tessa experience instalove, which is problematic in general, but particularly for a woman haunted by this incident from her past (which is written very clearly into every scene in which she’s with a man). Yes, they are together for only a few days before they are in love and having sex.

I didn’t like this one at all. If the blurb had been more on point, I wouldn’t have requested it.

Who hasn't fantasized about taking the lead role in their beloved novel? I definitely did that a lot, which is why I found this book to be really intriguing.

Compared to other vampire stories I've read in the past, I thought this book's concept was different. Additionally, given Tess's experiences with trauma and the PTSD that followed, you should be aware of the book's heavy and dark side before you start reading it. At the outset of the book, the author does issue a warning. It was quite enjoyable and touching to watch them cooperate and encourage one another.

I enjoyed Tess and Callum's relationship. Although their romance seemed a little too instantaneous, I believe the plot worked nicely with it. It was delightful and endearing to watch them cooperate and encourage one another. However, I found myself caring even more about Joni and Octavia because their chemistry was so much better.

I found it entertaining to investigate the concept of the contemporary vampire. I also valued Tess's development and recovery process following her trauma. On the negative aspects of the book, it was too repetitive and the supplemental content, such as the book's chapters and podcast, took me out of the narrative.

Though it wasn't my favorite, it was still enjoyable and I would suggest it to others, especially if they are vampire show fans.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I can't lie...it was a real struggle to finish this book. Getting into it was a struggle which was then amplified by the annoyance of all the media excepts as well as the switching between no less than 4 characters POV's. I was really excited for the story, because I thought the premise sounded different - which it was - but then so much of the story was based around the FMC reeling from being SA'd (as one would). At no point was this mentioned until I actually had the book in my hands, and, as I'm being totally honest, I wouldn't have requested this book had I known. It was also off-putting that the FMC is so affected what happened that she literally hasn't told a soul...but then randomly decides she trusts a literal vampire enough to tell him? I just don't understand; it also seems like maybe a "rom-com" isn't the best place to have such a heavy topic, especially when it very much influences the storyline.

Other than that, I simply couldn't enjoy the story when it felt like I was being bounced around from POV to POV, as I mentioned, and reading the excerpts felt like that was maybe the author's way of getting information to the reader, but it wasn't done well. If anything, it felt tedious. The romance between Tess and Callum came out of nowhere - although I did enjoy the romance between Olivia and Joni. Lastly, I was disappointed that Rick didn't meet an untimely demise at the hands of Callum, but here we are...

Anyway, read at your own risk. I wish I had better things to say.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for giving me a chance to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a pretty straightforward read. I liked the concept of the book. Your favorite vampire characters from your book are actually real and you have to save them in a parallel universe. There were parts of the book where I was like ehh but others were fun.

Thank you NetGalley and dial press for the gifted earc.

3.5

Overall i enjoyed this. I really loved Stayman-London’s first novel because i’m a Bachelor fan, but something else I love about her writing style is her use of podcast transcripts throughout to help inform the story at large. She also has an excellent way of commenting on a grander issue by correlating it with something more trivial, like body image and reality dating shows or, in this novel, sexual assault and vampirism.

I’m sure that parallel to vampirism has been done before, but this story really emphasizes how traumatic that experience could actually be and plays with the irony of how historically vampires have been used as an alluring escape despite the non-consensual nature of a vampiric act. Vampires need permission to enter your space, but after that they can pretty much do whatever if you’re under their spell. Similarly, and in this case, you could welcome the possibility of a sexual encounter, but later be so under the influence of whatever, that you have no recollection of the sex, let alone consent for it.

Anyway, this was excellent in demonstrating how a traumatic experience can cause someone to completely change their lifestyle in an attempt to isolate themself from any reminder of the assault.

My main problem with this was I found the story a little slow to start because we were establishing the lore of the vampire world. While the vampire novel excerpts were on brand for Stayman-London and appropriate for Tess’s characterization, I found myself skimming them after a few chapters, because I wasn’t that invested and in most instances the details were re-explained later on (or even beforehand) once we’re in the vampire world. So that became a little repetitive.
It also took me a long time to care about any of the vampires. Olivia is haughty, Callum is a jerk, Felix was a creep. Granted, that’s their characterization: we’re supposed to be skepitical of all the “villainous” vampires because Tess has been biased against them. But it took too long for me to become invested in the vampire characters that I found it a teeny bit of a slog.

But this book isn’t about the romance or the vampires. It’s about a woman who has allowed her trauma to distance herself from her dreams and the people who support her, keeping her from growing into the strong person she can be. No one was keeping her down except herself, she just needed to allow herself to see that. And for that lesson, I thought this novel did a great job.

Whip smart and bitngly 👀 funny I really enjoyed this! Heart warming and feel good, love urban fantasy and this was fantastic

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

Wasn’t a big fan of this one. Didn’t like the format of the book or the plot. Did not finish. Nice cover though!