Member Review

The sapphic Rapunzel retelling piqued my interest when I read the synopsis on NetGalley. However, this one fell short of my expectations.

Ava was turned at a young age into a vampire by her mother, then disappeared from society. That same night, Kaye’s mother was murdered by a vampire. Kaye assumes it was Ava because she had no further contact from her. Ava is trapped in her house by her mother and stepfather and is longing to see Kaye again. All the while Kaye’s hatred of vampires is growing, and she spends her time learning ways to kill them.

A horrible mother is one of the makings of a great fairy tale, and Ava’s mother is brutal. She and Ava’s stepfather do unspeakable things to her. The atrocities were mentioned, but really glossed over. They were never dealt with in any way. In this case I found most of the characters very shallow and their motivations were superficial.

I have similar feelings toward the world building. Most of it was just dumped on the reader. I would love more showing me this world, than just telling me about it. This led to some confusion about why things happened in the book. I could not get a clear picture in my head and could not glean answers just from what information was given to me. The pacing was sometimes so slow and other times very fast.

What I did love was the trope of friends who became enemies and then lovers. I did enjoy the romance between Ava and Kaye, but there were just too many other issues that overshadowed their love story. I really wanted to like this, and it has all the makings of an epic sapphic story, but a lot of the elements just fell short.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Wednesday Books for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.