I was excited about the premise of this book, but it was a struggle for me to get through it. While I obviously have compassion for Tess, our main character, and all she lived through, I was so annoyed with her for so much of this book. I struggled to even LIKE her for much of this book, which is a bummer b/c I truly loved the premise of this story.

I started this book around 7 PM today and I just finished (11:19 PM). From the first chapter I was hooked, and honestly, it was everything I needed in a book right now.

In Fang Fiction, everyone is obsessed with the hot vampire series Blood Feud. They are the perfect books for fans of Buffy and The Vampire Dairies (love the pop culture references btw). One obsessed fan is Tess. Blood Feud is definitely her comfort series, and it brought her and her BFF Joni together. I loved how the author showed fans and the MCs interacting with the popular series by breaking up the story with intermittent text messages, social media threads, podcast episodes, etc. where you saw Blood Feud fans (Feudies) deep dive into the lore and theories of the story. The interactions felt very real. Fang Fiction is definitely for fandom nerds.

But is Blood Feud real? Are there actually two clans of vampires trapped on an isle in another dimension? Tess liked to dabble with the idea that the characters in Blood Feud actually exist, but she didn’t really believe it. As least not until a vampire shows up in the hotel she manages! This event triggers an adventure for both Tess and Joni where Tess goes to the vampire isle and meets Callum Yoo, one of the villains of Blood Feud, while Joni and Callum’s sister Octavia grow closer back in New York.

I don’t want to say anything else about the plot because I don’t want to spoil. This was such a fun read, but it does deal with some dark themes. The author does a great job writing about Tess’s trauma without being explicit. So much can be said without saying it. The author avoids triggering language, but she still managed to absolutely break my heart. I literally started crying when Tess was at Joni’s b-day party. She has a really amazing journey to healing and finding her voice. Loved her speech at the end, and it should be spoken in all schools/colleges and Congress, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I would love to see more of this world! This is a fun read with a diverse cast of characters.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Thank you Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for this ARC in exchange for my honest review

4 stars

The beginning was a little slow but it had a lot of world build and important information in it!

Around the 40% mark I decided I was finishing it that night and I wasnt stopping until I was done!

I loved the characters and how it pushes the lines of what makes you a villain and what makes you a hero!

Overall an enjoyable read with a fun plot line and A LOT OF CHATACTER GROWTH

This book was really interesting to dive into, it was simple and very straight to the point in writing style. I felt like everything made sense, it was overall logical in dialogue and very sedentary in emotional feelings. It's written like a typical Harlequin novel so I didn't find myself getting super attached to any characters but I did have fun while reading this novel.

The concept itself was really fun and I enjoyed what the author wrote/gave us in terms of content! Definitely a book you could read in one sitting! Probably not something I would pick up a second time, but still overall a great book!

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC!

YESSSSS

I loved this book, and can't wait to add it to my shelf.
Spice: 3.5/5. 🌶️

I feel like I should've listened to the Playlist while reading because I absolutely love the songs.

I don't think I'll be able to stop racing about this one until it comes out and I can re-read it again.

Read if you like:
Vamps (obviously)
Human x vamp romance ✨
Somewhat of a sloooow burn
LGBTQ COUPLES ✨
Touch her x die
Characters with trauma
Love triangles?

A magical island where vampires are trapped and humans have to save them? Sign me tffff up! I absolutely loved this one. Tess is trying to navigate the Isle while working through her own past traumas and finding her voice again.

Where do I even begin??

Callum & Tess have fiery, romantic energy and sweet chemistry but Tess and Felix? It was SIZZLING. 🥵 Their witty banter? C'MON (in another lifetime maybe).

I loved the exerts from the actual Blood Fued Novels! I would totally have been a Fuedie.

I'm super ashamed to admit I'd be a Felix girly at first like Tess was (who doesn't love a romantic who quotes poetry and is a doting sweetheart who's sometimes a morally gray asshat?)

Still, Callum was adorable. He was so protective over Tess, if ar first mistrusting, but their love story was so amazing. He spoils her and cares about her feelings and all that other mushy stuff. ❤️

This book was SO incredible. I loved the romances. I loved the vampires, the violence, the fight scenes, the back stories with Konstantin and the incredible world building on the Isle.

You won't regret pre ordering this one 🖤

Btw I should've guessed who August Lirio was, but had no idea!

Thank you, Netgalley and Dial Press, for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Review to come.

Please check triggers before reading this book.

Tess is completely obsessed with the book series Blood Feud. There are rumors that the characters from the books are real, which Tess kind of believes. She knows it's 100% for real when one of the characters shows up at her work and asks for her help.
Ok, so I was a bit disappointed when I read this! I was so excited to read it! I was a huge vampire book reader, and I'm loving the current resurgence of the genre. But this book was kind of all over the place. The main couple of the story was bland, and I didn't feel their connection. The relationship between Octavia and Tess's friend was way more entertaining. I felt their connection. The push and pull of their feelings for each other. There were also a lot of parts where I was confused about what was happening. The battle scenes were not well written. Overall, I loved the idea more than the execution, but I was still entertained while reading it, so I gave it 3 stars.

This is just FUN. A love letter to pop culture vampires and fandom conspiracies at the same time, being swept along with Tess's discovery that her favorite vampires are real and now she's trapped with them is a great ride. It wraps around a core of telling your own story and not always believing popular or first impressions, but it never forgets to really lean into that wish fulfillment that fiction and fandom escapism is so good for.

There's some confusing worldbuilding (especially as the lines blur between fiction and "reality") and out-of-nowhere vampire lore bits that felt out of place and at times it felt hard to separate what was really going on and what different factions were after, but as a celebration of fandom vampires, this was just so enjoyable.

Did I become obsessed with Bride by Ali Hazelwood? Did I think I would never recover? Also yes. And then I picked up Fang Fiction. Holy moly you guys. I’m not sure if people ever read netgalley reviews, but if you do, please for the love of all that is good and holy, read this spectacular book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to read this. Ugh i couldn’t get enough it was so cute. I loved the characters and plot so much!! 😍😍😍

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the ARC!

As soon as I saw Kate Stayman-London's name pop up I knew I had to request this one! I absolutely adored this book. It was so cute and fun and I loved all of the different elements (social media, podcasts, news articles) sprinkled throughout the book. I really enjoyed how different this book was, and how fun the characters were! I am a fan of Kate Stayman-London forever!

Thank you again for the ARC!

hank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC!

as a lifelong lover of twilight, low fantasy vampire stories are my personal brand of heroin. unfortunately, this novel missed the mark for me. the story weaves together an in-world vampire romantasy series + a superfan's experience being transported to that not-so-fictional world. that's a difficult task to accomplish in 320 pages; the narrative flips between both stories within the same chapter, but loses structure as the story unfolds. not only is this hard to follow, but as a reader i never felt fully immersed in either of these worlds. this book just couldn't decide what it wanted to be.

tess, the FMC, is a SA survivor who learns to trust again through falling in love with the vampire "villain" of her favorite book series. i'm not necessarily opposed to instalove in a romance novel, but these two lacked any chemistry. their dialogue felt cheesy and disjointed, almost like it was trying (and failing) to be quirky? the narrator tells us that tess overcomes her trauma and falls in love, but the textual evidence is nowhere to be found. i wouldn't call this a failure to "show, not tell", but rather a misalignment of how the character reads on the page.

finally, we need to talk about "glamours" in vampire fiction. i'm all for getting creative navigating classic vampire tropes, and i recognize that a low fantasy story won't deliver massive worldbuilding on the who/what/when of vampire skills. but throughout the story, "glamours" were used to turn blood into different foods, disguise a person, and create shoes out of thin air? this ended up being a lazy way to explain away the parts the author didn't care to.

between the choppy narrative and flat characters, i found this story underwhelming. hopefully this fall brings more vampire fiction that scratches the itch!

For me this book was a letdown. I like the idea but I feel like it was poorly executed. I love a good cheesy fun read but this felt like it just had bad writing which was a bummer because I did like the author's first book. Can't win them all

*Fang Fiction* by Kate Stayman-London is a darkly glamorous romp that delivers a fresh twist on the vampire romance genre. Tess Rosenbloom, our protagonist, is a relatable and complex character, navigating the shadows of her past while unexpectedly finding herself entangled in a world she thought only existed in books. The premise is irresistible for any fan of paranormal romance—who wouldn’t want to dive headfirst into the universe of their favorite series?

The novel skillfully balances humor and suspense, with Tess’s journey from skeptical hotel manager to vampire savior keeping the pages turning. The tension between her growing attraction to the villainous yet compelling vampire and the haunting traumas of her past adds depth to the story. The parallel sapphic romance unfolding in New York offers a nice contrast, broadening the novel’s appeal.

However, there are moments where the pacing stumbles, particularly in the middle sections, which can feel a bit drawn out. Also, while the plot twists are exciting, some may find them slightly predictable. That said, the story’s charm lies in its self-awareness and clever nods to vampire fiction tropes, making it a delightful read for fans of the genre.

Overall, *Fang Fiction* is a fun, engaging, and occasionally poignant read that fans of vampire romances will thoroughly enjoy. It's worth sinking your teeth into, even if it doesn’t entirely reinvent the wheel.
#NetGalley #FangFiction

So, you can imagine your typical vampire fiction - with a hot male protagonist who is known to be capable of a ton of violence but secretly a romantic - and a female protagonist who is so special that she can become the first one he ever makes a real emotional bond with despite literally spending centuries on this earth?

Well, how would I know? - I am not even a huge fan of the said genre of vampire fiction (and I mean this not as a euphemism suggesting that "I hate it" but. literally, that I don't count myself among its staunchest admirers and connoisseurs).

Except that this one simultaneously is and is not your typical vampire fiction, because this novel is highly self-conscious of its metafictionality.

So, let me start anew.

We meet this graduate student at Columbia University, Tess, who is studying comparative literature but above all high-brow discussions with her fellow grads on world lit classics, she values the admiration, shared with her roommate Joni, of this one vampire fiction series, called The Blood Feud. And so Tess is living her best life until something happens during her sophomore year of grad school... well, although we learn all the details only much later, we know immediately what it was: party rape, by one of those self-important donor kids from the department. Tess experiences panic attacks and high anxiety levels just at the thought of being in the same institution where the raper still goes on with his life, so she uproots without telling anyone a word, and disappears from school, to work as a night manager at a hotel (can't sleep at night anyways). She needs the escapism provided by her favorite fiction series even more now, and she dedicates herself to the fandom even more, gathering clues that, apparently, the vampires might actually exist in real world - and specifically the vampires from this series, as they can be traced back to photos from different decades. She profusely posts online about these theories but doesn't really believe in them - until one night she meets one of the fictional vampires from the books, who is seeking her help. The vampires have been locked out of the humans' world on this island that is an equivalent of Manhattan in a different dimension, and Tess should deliver a message there from the one who managed to escape to suggest the possible route of escape for others.

I think I will leave it here, as far as the extended "annotation" goes - I just didn't gather myself that it would be so highly metafictional when I read the actual annotation, which would make it even more attractive for me to reach out to. And that it would be about grad students researching genre fiction of all things! (a recent PhD who did her thesis on the escapism potential of genre fiction writing here)

The central part of the story, Tess's adventure on the vampire's Isle, is really your typical piece of vampire fiction, with all those cliches about an outwardly cold but secretly romantic hottie. I believe it was deliberately written in this highly conventional, recognizable manner. The thing is, the fact that Tess is a sexual assault survivor and that, even three years later, much of her reactions to the world are dictated by that experience, puts everything in a perspective. All these cliches of being a human whose blood and flesh is fully at the mercy of a much stronger paranormal creature - all this reads very differently when we cannot but keep in mind her experience of being at the mercy of, allegedly, another human being who could equally disregard her bodily autonomy and whom you couldn't even kill so easily with a stake or a silver bullet or by leaving out at sunrise.

So I think it is quite a powerful combination of conventional tropes and real-world concern, being also a metafictional commentary on how genre fiction is created and how those tropes are implemented in writing, and a commentary on how fandom works.

I have just one question. Why are they in CompLit? Anything mentioned about anybody's research or teaching sounded to me like fully fitting within an English department.

4.5 stars

I am grateful to Random House for providing me with a free eARC through Netgalley; the above review is entirely my own independent opinion.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an eARC of Fang Fiction in exchange for a fair and honest review.

“After three years of darkness, Tess Rosenbloom was finally ready to let in some light.”

I was unsure of this book at first, as a lot of the prologue and first few chapters were very much info dumps of Tess’s character and the lore of the books-within-a-book, Blood Feud. The dialogue felt stiff at times, and a lot of it was too unbelievable even for speculative fiction, until I realized I was reading it the wrong way— as the title and theme implies, this is fan fiction!

As soon as I just let myself have fun, I enjoyed this book a lot more. I do still have some questions, like why the tarot card was important, why witches could and did imprison vampires, why no one really cared their lives were being broadcast via books for years– but the ending definitely sets up for possible sequels and spin-offs, so I’m choosing to overlook those elements in favor of Joni and Octavia, the BEST couple and dynamic in this book.

Tess and Callum were a classic “Y/N and heart throb” story, but Joni and Octavia’s banter was so fun, I kind of wish the book was just about them, or at least setting Joni as the main protagonist.

Another thing, the perspectives were hard to follow at times, and there were a lot of instances where there’d be “and it was all a dream” scenes, which don’t sit right with me. I also found the transcripts annoying at first, but they grew on me toward the end.

I’d absolutely read any subsequent novels in this world, if not to learn more about the vampires (the scene where the side characters lamented being side characters in the Blood Feud books was pretty good).

Fang Fiction does have some problems keeping pace and believability, but I did enjoy it. It was a fun fanfiction-like book with rich characters, witty dialogue, and some decent twists. Definitely recommend it if you're a fan of Buffy or The Vampire Diaries.

This is the perfect read for anyone who's ever dreamed of disappearing into the world of their favorite stories or becoming best friends with their favorite characters in real life. The story was well written and entertaining with a satisfying character arc for Tess and enough twists to keep me on my toes!

Cutesie but tackled some serious topics well. It did feel predictable but that just made the story cozier!

I went into Fang Fiction expecting a fun, quirky book and was not disappointed. We follow Tess, an assault survivor and Columbia drop-out, as she tries to navigate her life with the help of her favorite book series. She hangs out on message boards debating theories and looking for clues to if the vampires from that series are real. She does not actually believe that to be the case until she comes face-to-face with one of those vampires. Tess finds herself on an adventure to save some of the characters from her favorite book while trying to stay alive. Meanwhile, her friend, Joni, is having a paranormal adventure of her own.

The author’s note at the beginning explains that Tess is an assault survivor. Although there are no graphic depictions on page, the story does flash back and provide glimpses of what happened to her. Be mindful of that note if that is something that could be triggering.

It is every reader’s dream to be able to step into the world of their favorite book. The very premise of this book was intriguing. Although the mixed media telling of the story made it hard to get into at first, once I was in, I was in! It is a fun story that deals well with the serious subject of assault. It showed how the act impacts the victim far beyond the actual event. Tess’s life was turned upside down from that moment. I like the message of self-healing. The fact that Tess needed to be able to trust and heal herself before she could trust or accept help from someone else.

The book’s two love stories were entertaining in different ways. Tess’s love story was ultimately sweet and healing while Joni’s love story was fun and hot (the bickering was top notch). Fingers crossed that we haven’t seen the last of this world. Let’s see those other worlds and get a love story for the portal witch!

I love a book that's campy as all get-out, especially one that's self-aware of what it's doing. When you've essentially got Twilight but in real life for people who have been obsessed with that book series for years, you know the drama is about to be so good. Also deals very thoughtfully and empathetically with sexual assault and its implications not only for the victim in terms of physical and psychological pain but the lasting impacts on all of their relationships. The only thing I wasn't the biggest fan of was the romances (there are two, with the four main leads paired off), which I felt were paced a bit strangely.

The premise sounded so fun and I was so excited to get the chance to read it. I wanted so badly to love this but it just didn't give me what I wanted. The vampires were interesting but the main character was too flighty for me. An average read for me.