I picked this up for the premise, which sounded promising. There was a lot of potential with this book, but unfortunately I found the execution very poor. I won’t get into everything for the sake of brevity, but I will mention my two biggest gripes. First, the writing was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Talk about belaboring the point. Over and over again. Using italics for emphasis, just in case we missed it the first dozen times. I felt practically infantilized. Second, the character work was uninspired. Every character just had some sad, horrible thing happen in their past which they revealed in expository dialogue. That is not enough to make them interesting. They need to be interesting in the time the narrative is actually taking place if I’m supposed to care about them in any way. As it was, I found myself very underwhelmed.

I went in with high hopes and I was sorely disappointed. I love enemies to lovers but I felt as if it was too fast and not really compelling. I also noticed many mistakes throughout it that bothered me. I felt like I was reading a fanfiction.

Characters: 3/5
Plot: 1/5
Romance: 1/5
Writing: 1/5

I really wanted to like this!

ＮＥＴＧＡＬＬＥＹ
ＲＥＶＩＥＷ

𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨:
- slayer x vampire
- sapphic
- enemies to lovers
- the witcher and castlevania vibes
- dragons, monsters and different types of creatures

𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬:
Unfortunately, I’ve decided to DNF this book at 12%. I would still rate it around 3 stars (average but not outstanding), because I can see how the premise, world and characters could be enjoyable for the right reader. However, I struggled too much with the writing style to fully engage with the story.

My main issue is with the grammatical structure of the sentences, which felt too unnatural or fragmented. For example:
“It didn’t take long before Claudia reached the edge of the forest, where she was greeted by a small farmhouse. With clothes left out on a washing line.”
“ It was an arduous trek up the mountain that no human would make lightly. Making the old castle an ideal lair for vampyrics.”
Sentences like these appear way too frequently, where a short sentence is followed by an additional fragment that should have been part of the original sentence. This sadly disrupts the flow and made the whole story feel choppy.

Additionally, the writing is quite simplistic, often telling rather than showing. This way I as the reader didn’t feel immersed in the world, unfortunately pulling me out and making me take double takes in a way that makes the prose feel flat.

All that being said, I do think readers who can look past these writing quirks might still enjoy the story and characters.
If the book gets another editing pass, I believe the reading experience would improve significantly, making it easier to appreciate the underlying story.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘈𝘙𝘊 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.

☆ Fun Factor 5/5
☆ Writing Style 3/5
☆ Characters 4/5
☆ Plot 2/5
☆ Setting 1/5
☆ Feels 2/5
☆ Spiciness 4/5 (several sex scenes and a really sweet slow burn romance)

Ultimate verdict ☆☆☆☆/5

☆☆☆Best Character Award goes to:☆☆☆ CLAUDIA my girl!!!!

Review: LETS GO LESBIANS!!!

Marketed as a sapphic Witcher homage, you get exactly what you're asking for. Kas is Geralt-ing all over the place with TWO silver swords mind you, except she's not as philosophical, conflicted, or nuanced as he is. For a majority of the book, she sees a monster, it dies. And just like Geralt, every woman on two legs thinks she's the hottest thing in town; it was oddly endearing and refreshing to see a lot of the tropes from such a masculine genre as monster-slayer fantasy reflected with a 95% female cast of characters. Everybody here is lesbians, and I love it!!! It's unapologetically a play on a very dude bro dominated genre and I was having a blast.

There's some kind of monster for Kas to kill in pretty much every chapter, from griffins to merfolk to DRAGONS. Yea, if you read the Witcher series and complained "he spends too much time being sad and not enough killing things," your prayers have been answered.

Claudia, Kas's half-vampire love interest, gives off massive Alucard of Castlevania energy, and not just from her beautiful platinum hair and cool rapier either. She's got the same sort of sadness Alucard does about a mortal parent dying and the grief the immortal one went through at the loss, and then without spoiling anything, this becomes a save the world plot because of grief for a beloved lost. It just worked.

Have we seen these tropes done before? Ohhhh yes. Did I care? No. Not at all. Did this start it's life as a Witcher x Castlevania fanfic but with lots of lesbians? Maybe, but good for Rita. This was a really really fun read.

Ultimately though the romance between Kas and Claudia is the real heart of everything. Their banter, the gradual gains in trust and respect for each other that ultimately turn into love. It's just incredibly sweet.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review!