I had initially requested the arc from Netgalley for the intriguing premise, and I am glad to say that I am not disappointed in any way. In This is Not a Vampire Story, Simon Doyle masterfully weaves together the long, weary life of our main character Victor with the people and experiences that have shaped it, creating a story about friendship, sacrifice, isolation, and that which exists in all three — love. The narrative is wonderfully framed with terse words, clearly painstakingly chosen to bring the reader a specific experience, and a timeline covered in mystery, full of equal parts question and answer. I certainly did not expect myself to be emotional at points in the story, and I found myself invested not only in Victor’s life, but also in the other characters that have touched me throughout. I will be thinking about this for a long time. Thank you to Nightsgale Books and Netgalley for the arc!

Thanks so much Netgalley and the publisher for consider me to this book.. I absolutely love Victor story, if you're looking for a good love story this book is for you.. I'm still processing all my feeling after reading this book and the perspective of a 17 years old boy in love with a lot to deal while is navigating to loss and love, this personally for me had a vert powerful message

Victor's story unfolds on two timelines: that of a young man in WW2 England, reeling from a crippling injury, a big move, and his father's death, and that of a young man in modern England who has gotten a job at a nursing home, to reconnect (stealthily) with his old friends. They've aged; he has not. This is, as the title implies, at the very least, not a very traditional vampire story.
It was an interesting twist on the vampire story. Victor and his friend group are good, and seeing the comparison between the 40s and the modern plot added a unique element.

In This is Not a Vampire Story by Simon Doyle, he has woven a tale that is a beautiful and intense love story, as the character of Victor navigates his memories of the past and the events that haunt him decades into the future. It is true, this is not a Vampire story, it is a story of love, memories, friendship and the acceptance of both life and death.
What creates such a compelling narrative is the weaving across time of Victor’s story as the story intersects between his present in a quiet nursing home to the past in a time where love between men was not only not accepted but was forbidden by the legal system. What makes this so beautiful is the acceptance in the modern era and the friendships surrounding both Victor and James. That narrative of love is told against the backdrop of vampirism, creating a unique story and a powerful bond between the characters. And it also shows how one event can change everything for two individuals and yet, still allow them to come together in love at the right time.
If you like love stories that feature a vampire, then This is Not a Vampire Story would be perfect for you. It resonates with the theme of love and acceptance, of accepting death and change and of forgiveness of the past. It is a beautiful and intense love story and one well worth reading.

This is Not a Vampire Story by Simon Doyle - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ of 5

When Victor Callahan fell in love with James O' Carroll in 1949 in Ireland, he knew the odds were against him. But nothing could have prepared him for how his life would change when a vampire attacked him.
In 1999 Victor returns home again. He still looks like the 17 year old boy he once was. But now James is in the twilight of his life in a care home. Victor takes a job as a night custodia just to be near him again. Can they make up for lost time? Can Victor let go of the only man he's ever truly loved? Does he have any choice?

The title is right. It's not a vampire story. It's a love story that happens to have a vampire in it. This story has some heavy emotional themes, please check the TWs. This is a second chance romance, friends to lovers story.

I really liked the story of Victor and James reconnecting amidst the supernatural elements and the snippets of Victor's life we saw.

Favorite Parts - I loved seeing the boys playing around at the beach when they were young.

Oh. Oh.

This made me ask myself when have I last truly cried because of a book. The answer is: not for a long time.

The book narrates two timelines, about 70 years apart. I think the purpose of the story is very clear and honest from the very beginning, but that doesn't soften the blows, nor does it give the author an excuse to gloss over the tragedy of each event. I think, beyond the mere context of who these characters were to each other, there is a certain dignity and recognition that is given to death and specifically death in old age that we sometimes ignore in the face of tragedies that appear much more injust. But both deserve our love and care, and this book reminds us of that.

3,5 stars
Thank you netgalley for this book.
Yeah, this book was nice to read, but not fully for me. I liked most of the things. For instance i like that it switches between the present and the past, i like the story, i like the characters and their friendship. I just don't love the story and the characters. It was nice to read and i like the characters enough, just didn't love them. Also felt like i didn't really connect with the characters that well, not sure why. The book had some sad moments, but because i missed the connection i didn't cry or anything. So that was a little bit of a bummer. So yeah, it was nice to read and i did enjoy it, it just wasn't really for me.

Victor Callahan has just accepted a job as a night porter in a nursing home in a quiet Irish village. Victor was purposeful in selecting this job, as there is a group of men living in the home that Victor used to know well. He has loved one of the men, James, his entire life. But while the men have aged, Victor still looks seventeen.

As Victor tries to make sense of the years that have gone by, he recalls youthful days on the coast, forbidden love with James, and a dark shipwreck that changed everything he knew. James and the other men don’t have much time left and they also can’t reconcile how Victor looks so much like their friend who disappeared years ago. Victor’s supervisor, Gloria, doesn’t like Victor much and while Gloria has unspeakable secrets of her own, she just might be able to offer the assistance Victor needs to move on as he grapples with the reality of love and immortality.

The feel of the blurb on this one drew me in and I was interested to hear Victor’s story. The book is told from his point of view and alternates between the late 1940s when he was a teen and present day. After a traumatic family event, Victor and his mother move out of the city to a small village and Victor has a lot to adjust to. He meets James, and Victor immediately finds James cool and good looking. They hang out with James’ friends, they spend time together alone in secret, and they fall in love. An adventurous day changes all of their lives, but Victor suffers the most. Victor changes in painful ways and he knows he can no longer stay in the small village and that he can no longer stay with James.

As the title of the book reflects, being a vampire is not what this book dwells on entirely. We never meet any other vampire in any detail, we never know anything about vampire lore, and Victor is left on his own to either wander aimlessly or retreat for decades. It’s not a romance in the traditional sense, as Victor and James’ story is told in flashbacks and in shadow, hidden from an unforgiving world. It is a love story in the sense that Victor longs for what might have been and now, as James reaches the end, Victor is going to care for him. Gloria, the night nurse, also becomes part of Victor’s story, and at times I wanted more depth to her character and other times there was just enough there.

The writing here is good and the effect of Victor’s story becomes profound. I was left feeling melancholy and sad as Victor grapples with immortality and a life missed. Victor is not happy at all with how the events of his life unfolded and the end certainly drives that point home. I was not left feeling uplifted at all at any point of his journey and a reader should be aware of how intensely that comes across.

I am not okay. I’ve cried and hurt and mourned and cried again while reading this story, and I’m feeling pretty rundown because of it, if I’m being honest. It was probably the most emotionally wrought way possible to start my 2025 reading year—but it was also totally and unregrettably worth it, because, sobbing mess aside, it was also a deeply affecting, thought-provoking, and memorable way to kick off my book year with a big bang.

This is Not a Vampire Story is a simply written, strikingly beautiful, soul-wrenching queer story, with many poignant and universal themes at play, such as friendship, love, loss, regret, forgiveness, purpose, and acceptance.

As the title states, this is not TECHNICALLY a vampire story and, by my standards, it’s not. I may be mistaken (so forgive me if I am), but I don’t believe the word ‘vampire’ was uttered once in the whole duration of the narrative, even though, TECHNICALLY, the protagonist, Victor, becomes something of that nature along the way—at least, again, by my standards of what constitutes a vampiric being. In this way, I thought the story and its execution was very clever and unique.

Although the writing itself is fairly simplistic and straightforward, I found the whole thing extremely emotive, engrossing, and impressively realized, especially in terms of the dual timelines at play, which wove together the perfect picture of past and present in the lives of Victor and his childhood friends, James, Danny, Giuseppe, and Michael.

Yes, there’s a romantic element in this book—a big, beautiful, enduring love shared between Victor and James—but, even with how affecting I found their relationship, across time, I feel as if the bonds of friendship and the realities of those you love ageing, when you yourself are stuck in time, were way more the central elements of the bigger story.

At its core, this story is about the fleetingness of time and how precious every single moment we get to share with our loved ones truly is. Even when a life is long and full of love, it’s still too damn short, as Victor and his friends quickly learn in this story that feels like a race against time across the pages. This is a basic message that applies to every single one of us, and it still hit me like a ton of bricks in its factuality.

I’ve been asked if this has a HEA by reader friends, and I have to say that’s a no from me. I think the whole thing is very much about perspective though. To me, this is a love story NOT a romance, and therefore doesn’t demand that it ends with a happily ever after for the characters in focus. That’s not to say I—a huge romance reader that 99.9% of the time expects and wants a HEA—was disappointed in any way whatsoever. I wasn’t. This story had the ending is absolutely needed to have, in order to have the same deeper resonance and impact it had on me personally.

To put things in comparative terms, I’d compare this reading experience to some other GREAT queer love stories that have hit in similar ways. If you’ve read and loved books like The Lion & the Crow, They Both Die at the End, or Song of Achilles, to name but a few, then you should be just fine dealing with the themes and outcomes of this lovely story. (And if those stories weren’t for you, then you can rest assured this probably won’t be either).

Having said all of that, despite the heavier, sombre themes of this story, it also had such beautiful representations of long-lasting bonds of friendship. Despite whether the characters were rowdy teenagers or decrepit old codgers on their last legs (figuratively and literally), so many of the scenes shared between these characters were fun and cheeky and, on many occasion, smile-inducing and full of heart and light. The fact is, life is never just one thing, and in that way, this book was as warm and joyful and heartwarming as it was distressing, tragic and heartbreaking.

Simon Doyle is a new-to-me author whom I’ve had my eye on for a few years now. They say good things come to those who wait, and in that way, I feel like my timing couldn’t have been better, in terms of picking up *this* book as my first venture into Doyle’s storytelling world. Due to the nature of this story, I can’t quite say I enjoyed myself while reading, but I can say I loved the whole experience and would welcome it again and again.


***A special thanks to the publishers (via Netgalley) for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Simon Doyle - This is not a Vampire Story (ARC)
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OMG… Simon Doyle!!! What have you done. In all the good ways. Now I have seen enough tv shows and movies to know how this would have played out, hell I didn’t even read the backcover but something about this, i had a feeling and boy it was well worth it. And oh boy! Was it and some. This is definitely not a Vampire story.

Our protagonist Victor comes to an irish nursing home as a night porter, particularly to care for three patients, from his past but he holds a secret from us and them. As time passes and layers peel back things come to forefront about his past life as well as of the residents that he has come to care about. The story of friendship, specially between young boys, and set in a period setting, it’s such a refreshing take on a gay romance with supernatural.

The writing surprisingly is not tiresome nor it is very tedious in terms of how it flows specially within the period setting because some story that in the 1950s can come across as that. The story of friendship between these four boys explores their interpersonal relationships and personalities. The story flits between present and the past, showing us Victor’s journey throughout the ages and how he ended up here.

It is such a cute depiction of male friendships specially between boys and the blossoming romance but with reality shadow overhang, both in past and the present. The feelings of loss, grief, the want and longing to be together, it ends on such a beautiful note that is both, it is one of those few endings that just makes you feel things long after it has ended. And even though you knew it was one of the two ways where it would end, it does not take away from the charm of the narrative and the book.

The ship on the book cover please a very important role in one of the characters transformations of, you guessed it being a vampire. But personally, for me it is not the turning point in the story, but when romantic emotional realisations happen.

To take fleabag’s words, this is not a vampire story, this is a love story.

Take a bow Simon Doyle, take a bow.

Last book of the year!

Was it on theme with the holiday season? No lol! But, heartfelt and deeply moving nonetheless.

Victor is an enigmatic "seventeen"-year-old, who works the night shift at a nursing home. His job isn’t just about caring for elderly residents; it’s about reconnecting with old friends from a lifetime long past. Among them is James, who once meant more to Victor than anyone else. But as Victor risks exposure to be near them, secrets—both his and others'—begin to unravel.

This is a story about a vampire, yet as the title suggests, it’s so much more than that.
It's a story about family, friendship, and love. It’s a poignant exploration of life, death, grief, and love—both haunting and deeply moving.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received this ARC from Netgalley but the views expressed here reflect my personal opinion.

This was the first book I've read by this author and I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. Most vampire books I've read depict vampires as suave, sophisticated people with tortured pasts. And yes, there is a bit of a past here, but it's more decades than centuries and the tortured part of it feels much more mortal than immortal. There's the juxtaposition of age and youth, innocence and guilt, and romantic and fraternal love. The main character feels real, beaten down by time instead of polished. This was lovely and deep, a quick read that left a lasting impression.

If you're a romantasy fan that likes the spicy, popcorn reads with epic battles, this may not be for you. If you like a love story that may not end in a traditional happily ever after way, where reveals are gentle and the spice level is low but not non-existent, you will love this. You don't need to like vampire stories to read this, as it is light on the lore. There is some vampire gore but it just comes up a couple of times and you can skim it if you're squeamish. It's more a coming of age story that is also a story about getting old, with the loneliness and physical pain that comes with the passage of time.

My first Simon Doyle book, but not my last.

Earlier this year I picked up a book with a black and red cover, a “something” and “something” title, and a knife on the cover… and halfway thought I realised I was waiting for vampires to show up… So when I saw the title “This is not a vampire story” I thought it seemed like a good idea after that experience.

Victor, who looks 17, returns to Ireland to care for three men in a nursing home. It becomes apparent that something has happened to Victor to give him an extended lifespan. The book moves between the past, and present and a picture of Victor being a contemporary of the 3 men he is caring for in the nursing home. And a history of their lives and connections start to become apparent.

This is definitely not a Vampire story in a “vampire boyfriend” sense, but is in the sense of thinking through what it means to be satisfied with life. In vampire stories MORE life is often the goal (or the achievement), but this story looks at it more from a quality over quantity perspective, and what that means for Victor and his friends.

The title of the book helped me set my expectations, and explored grief and aging and connection in a way that was bitter sweet in the best way.

Put on your armour for reading, LGBTQIA+ readers, because – as Doyle tells us – this is not a vampire story.
What it is, is a heart-scorching metaphor where vampirism stands in for homosexuality, and it is meticulously and tremblingly done. Rarely have I encountered the queerness-as-monstrous motif so tenderly handled (and I say that freshly out of reading David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli’s ‘Queer Little Nightmares’ anthology).
This is out next week, and it merits a sensation. Doyle is a gifted writer. His Irish nationality twinkles in his writing, maintaining a sense of our kind of humour, and of the way we ‘be’ with ourselves and others. I heard the whole story in my head in a west-coast accent, thank you, Simon Doyle!
I can’t thank the Victory Editing NetGalley Co-Op group of independent publishers (Nightsgale Books/SD Press) enough for this ARC.

I'm so glad I requested and grateful that I received this book from NetGalley.

"This is Not a Vampire Story" by Simon Doyle has exactly the kind of heartbreak I expect from the story of an immortal being. Victor, the main character , is such a soft person. I greatly enjoyed reading his story, it is as dark and heartbreaking as it is peaceful and heartwarming. He is my favorite character. My second favorite character is Gloria (I would love to hear her story someday).

There are so many things I loved about this book. (Some are too spoilery to share). The characters, the setting, how the story is structured jumping between the past and present, and the overall connection between love & death. I think this is a book I could reread again and still cry just as much if not more than I have now. So, be warned this story hurts. But, I also found it oddly peaceful (not all of it), there is just something about the ending that gave me peace.

Finally I just want to say remember to check content warnings. There's a lot of dark stuff that happens in this book both on and off page. Overall, "This is Not a Vampire Story" is a book I'm glad I read. I feel like it was something I needed in this moment.

I received an e-ARC and am giving my honest review! Thank you to NetGalley

This was stunning. Genuinely one of the most gorgeous books I’ve ever read. The reality of knowing what was going to happen to the men while Victor had to watch was so, so incredibly sad and so… cathartic? I loved it. Seeing James and Victor’s story in real time through 1949 and then going back to the present while they are all rapidly deteriorating. It felt so real. I don’t know how to express my feelings about this, but I have many. All of them positive, in the end, even if the emotion itself isn’t necessarily happy.

James and Victor’s relationship was so stunning to read. I was very happy when there was <spoiler>never a moment of violent homophobia towards them. Yes, Michael, but they were never victims to a public, violent incident, something I feel a lot of books have when in a similar time period.</spoiler> Their love and adoration was so strong and devoted, it was incredibly refreshing and honest and real. They were truly each other’s love and soulmate, and it was so lovely to read. I really can’t get over how much they loved each other all throughout time, and right up to the ending. It never faltered. Even when Victor was gone, James was his one true thought, and same with James about Victor.

I loved the friendships as well. Danny and Giuseppe and even Michael were such fun and real characters, their banter feeling so in tune and real. It felt like you were reading true conversations between old friends in their childhood, and even the same when they’re older.

<spoiler>My thoughts while reading chapter 35: The entire story has built up to this moment and yet I, like James, am not ready, nor am I prepared. Mr. Nguyen’s story is only making it worse. James’ line of “‘What if there is no God? Or worse—what if there is?’”(263) is so good, too. And so real. The fear with both possibilities is so real.
“‘If to love is to be human, I knew that’s what I was. Nothing else ever mattered.’” Stunning.
He got the ending he wanted so desperately. And I adore that for him, both Victor and James. After all that time, James could finally see Victor again, be with him. Die with him.</spoiler>

This was beautiful and such a new and unique take on grief and the length of grief, prolonged and scary.

I DNF’d Simon Doyle’s “Runaway Train,” gave it a one-star review on account of its misogynistic tropes, and swore I’d never read another book of his.

Thank goodness I have a bad memory for names, because “This Is Not a Vampire Story” is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I’d never have requested the ARC if “Simon Doyle” had rung a bell.

Take the “ageless vampire” trope seriously. Have the vampire never forget his first and only love, whom he abandoned for reasons I won’t specify because, although you’ll probably guess them at some point, you emphatically don’t want the spoiler. Have that vampire return, in his lover’s advanced old age, to work at the care home where the lover and other friends of their youth now live. Give full weight to the loss, the grief, the betrayal, the longing to take away the pain of the beloved.

The result is shattering.

At moments, Doyle steps too hard on an insight or a bit of symbolism. “The love we give away is the only love we keep” — please, no. And although the first person is the only narrative voice that could possibly work — Victor’s account needs the intimacy — in this story it has one inevitable pitfall. But, well, who cares. This is not a vampire story, just the most beautiful, heartbreaking love story I can imagine.

Thanks to NetGalley and SD Press for the ARC.

Unfortunately, I DNFd this book, and it wasn't for me! A lot of pining and piecing together the story when I expected a bit more romance and action, especially given the cover. An interesting plot, but didn't hold my interest enough.

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it will come out in January. This was a heartwrenchingly beautiful mlm story. I'm absolutely devastated right now.

I really loved this book! The way it portrays both disability/illness and ageing was very compelling. The love story was beautiful and sweet and painful, as was the other relationships in Victor's life. I adore a portrayal of vampires that places them closer to humanity instead of further, though i do feel like we could dive deeper into Victor's life and state of mind between the two timelines. My only complaint would be the subject of Victor's friendship with Michael and how it seemed like a huge turning point in the story and possibly a conflict within his relationship with his loved ones, but ended up not having an honest, meaningful resolution. Still, it's a fantastic read that I will be reccommending to queer vampire fans and lovers of sweet-but-tragic romance stories!