*I received a copy of this book from the publisher. This has not influenced my review.*

This book was… interesting. And I do mean that in a good way, despite the pause. It’s just hard to explain.

For the first part of the book, it juxtaposed the sadness of immortality with the freshness of mortality and youth in a way I hadn’t read before. Which is not to say no other book explores that, just that I’ve never found one that explores it the way this one did. By having one of the main characters grapple with losing an old love while simultaneously finding a new one. I enjoyed that exploration.

It was a little weird that the vampire MC was essentially dating one person who was 80-something and one who was 18. But I learned a long time ago to expect and embrace some weirdness when it comes to vampires. So YMMV, but it wasn’t that hard for me to shrug off. Especially since I think vampirism could cause you to exist in this conflicting mental state where part of you ages and feels old, but part of you still feels the age at which your life essentially froze.

I also liked how this book did not frame death itself as a sad and terrible thing. It acknowledged that losing someone is sad, someone dying alone or because they’ve been abandoned by society is horrible, but death itself just is, and not everyone wants immortality. It was nice that a book involving a lot of elderly characters and the grief of losing someone didn’t villainize death.

There was also a strong theme of queerness. Queer history, queer rage, queer love. A lot about bigotry, politics, and the way people are treated.

The relationship between Howard and George could’ve been developed more. I guess time was passing and they were spending it together, but the reader didn’t get to see a lot of that, so it felt a little off to me when their feelings were so strong. Still, it was a nice romance with characters who were supportive of each other.

Well, it was nice, excluding the (intentionally)… let’s call it concerning element. But that concerning element was not how they treated each other, it was more the effect they had on each other. They brought some things out in each other, but were these changes for the better or for the worse?

The thing about this book is that it takes a turn, and it’s one you might not really expect from the description. So you go into it expecting a fairly calm, maybe a bit sad, maybe a bit political, story, and instead you get something quite a bit darker, in a way. The tone also shifts from sober to almost a little campy.

I don’t usually compare books to other books or media, but I happened to fairly recently watch *SPOILER* Heathers (which is mentioned in the book), Jennifer’s Body, and Lisa Frankenstein, *END SPOILER* and I feel like this book falls into a similar category as those, though with stronger queer themes and its own unique differences. Spoilered because you can probably guess what direction the book will take if you’ve seen those, though the fun is still in seeing how this specific story and these characters turn out. Funnily enough, I didn’t really like any of those movies, but I did enjoy this book, so if you love them, you’ll probably like this book even more.

I like “typical” vampire romances, I wouldn’t read them if I didn’t, but I also like a vampire book that goes in a different direction. To be honest, I feel like the social issues in this book probably could’ve been largely the same without there being a vampire. But the author did tie it in by having him personally see the injustices done to queer people in history and living a lifetime of the injustice himself. And, well, I’m never mad about there being a vampire around 😅 He wasn’t suave and rich, he was struggling like the rest of us, but he was still bitey.

The hardcover is nice, beautiful cover art and fun blood splatter on the title text.

I’m really trying not to spoil anything, so I’ll end this by saying: I think this would’ve been even better for me with a little more development of the relationship before the tone shift and more exploration of immortality, since the book started with that, but ultimately those were not the main point, and I still enjoyed being along for the ride!

*Rating: 3.5 Stars // Read Date: 2025 // Format: Ebook & Hardcover*