I heard sapphic vampire fantasy, and I was in. It was easy to get swept up in this dark, unique imagining of gods and vampires, told through two different storylines of love and adventure. I would say this novel leans more fantasy with a strong romantic plotlines, as we follow the stories of Favre and Leyna and their quests for love and redemption. I enjoyed both narrators and liked the complimentary ways that their stories unfolded. Personally, I would recommend this book to teen and adult fantasy readers, and I look forward to reading the next installment!

I wanted to read this book immediately based on the premise of vampires, gods, and a sapphic romance. Unfortunately, the writing style didn’t quite work for me. It felt a bit clunky and hard to follow, especially with the shifts in POV and timelines.
That said, if you enjoy a plot driven storyline with an epic love story at the center, this might be exactly what you're looking for.

*Thank you to Patrice Caldwell, St. Martin's Press | Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the digital copy. I am freely leaving my honest review.

Thank you SMP & Wednesday books for the gifted digital copy.

Where Shadows Meet
Patrice Caldwell
Publishing Date: April 1, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🎧 Narrator: Alexis Campbell, Khaya Fraites, & Melinda Sewak 🎧

“𝒪𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝓊𝓅𝑜𝓃 𝒶 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝒶 𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓉𝓁𝑒 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝑒𝒹 𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓅𝒾𝓁𝓎 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓈… 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚜.”

This book hooked me with vampires and then upped the ante when I learned of all the representation it delivered. We have queer black princesses, angels, vampires, and goddesses, sapphic romance, chronic pain, dysfunctional family dynamics, loss and grief… so many things.

This is a debut YA novel and I think it was a solid one. We get multiple timelines and POVs. Thana and Favre provide the historical background of how we’ve gotten where we are in present day, where we follow Leyla and Najja. There is war, political unrest, power imbalance, and injustices.

This book offers slow burn romance, but even more than that this book is about the sacrifices made for love. How far will one go for love? How much are we willing to lose or give up of oneself? And is it worth it? Seeing this explored in the two different timelines was really interesting.

I flew through this one and the ending definitely left me excited for book two!!

🎧 I read this one with both my eyes and my ears in tandem. The narrators were good but their voices were not different enough to make it easy to immerse yourself in each character. This combined with all of the information that needed to be digested made a tandem read the way to go for me!

This book was well-written and epic and had an interesting concept and bit of world-building. It also never fully pulled me in. I found myself getting bored at times and never really felt invested in the characters or plot. It was definitely a YMMV kind of book though and I can see how other readers could enjoy it more than I did.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

This book was excellent. I did receive Physical copy as well so I will be reviewing this one in full on my socials.

I liked this! I loved the diversity that we are seeing in books recently! A sapphic novel about vampires, deamons, gods, etc. was a fresh and fabulous idea. I loved the adventure in this book as well. A quest from which you may never return? The perfect amount of danger, if you ask me!

DNF'd at 30%. I really struggled to find my footing in this. Choosing to read the audiobook may have been a mistake as I could not follow what was going on, which character was which, or what this world looked like. None of the characters stood on their own and I kept getting confused whose POV I was in. I might give it another go in future with a physical copy, but I can't get into this right now.

I DNFed this at 16%. It was full of info dumping and characters telling each other things they already knew, and yet the world building was also confusing. I felt like I had little idea of what was going on. I also found the journal sections strange when they could literally function as regular narrative. This book was not for me, unfortunately.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for the ARC.

I wanted to love this book so much, but it was MESSY. Not the "morally complex characters making a series of terrible decisions" messy or the "I have no idea what's going on, but I love it" messy, but like...I started confused, ended confused, and spent a whole bunch of time in the middle confused, and I didn't care at any point to make myself un-confused.

Where Shadows Meet is (theoretically) a sapphic vampire novel with a love story that spans the ages, a war between various magical species, and a quest to the Isle of the Dead. I like every single one of those things separately. I like 'em all together, too! But I don't like Where Shadows Meet one bit. And I think it's mainly because there were so many things going on at the same time, and none of the things ever felt like they came together. One of the biggest issues was the dual timelines and multi-POV. Jumping back and forth between a thousand years ago and present day is ambitious enough, but then you throw in journal entries which don't quite connect, a SUPER complicated lore involving 5 vampire families with all different types of powers, angels, some kind of monstrous creatures who eat the vampires/angels/humans (I think?), seers, and a bunch of other things, and you lose me. If I'm confused, and I have a literal degree in English Literature, and I wrote papers on FAULKNER for like three semesters straight, how is a teenager supposed to follow this?

I can't tell you how the characters were. I've got some names - Thana, Layla, Najja -- and I've got some idea of who's human, or vampire, or angel, but I really don't know much else beyond that, because by the time I puzzled out the lore enough to understand what was going on, it was the middle of the book and I'd put it down to go read another ARC.

My rule of thumb is that I don't rate anything less than 3 stars unless it is borderline incoherent, offensive to most reasonable standards, or literal plagiarism. So, going by that rule, this is still 3 stars. Just because I did not enjoy this book doesn't mean that another reader won't, but it does mean that I don't want to spend anymore time reviewing this thing.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Saint Martin's Press/Wednesday Books, and Patrice Caldwell for gifting me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review! Wednesday Books, baby, I still love you, but this was a big miss!

Interesting beginning to a series. Can't wait to delve back into the world she created. There was a lot to keep me interested and waiting for the sequel.

Where Shadows Meet is what I would catalog as a Fairytale Fantasy about how vampires came to be and how humans adapted to their existence, alongside the Gods wraths. I really loved this story asI felt all the love and devotion that was put into pages to make this story be. I loved how it was spread over 1000 years of history and the deeds of thirsty Gods still had catastrophic consequences a millenium later. Some lines were so powerful, my favorite being, "Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved happily ever afters. Life is nothing like those tales." -Pause, take it in-

Some of the most interesting things that I am taking away from WSM is the mother-daughter relationships she created; the lengths a mother needs to go through to protect her daughter, the sacrifices she has to make, how something can look evil from the outside but only the mother knows that it had to be done out of love for her daughter. So powerful. I also LOVED the role of the ghosts.. I mean, add a ghost into a story and I'm sold!

Caldwell created a ruthless world that I easily projected myself into, my favorite one being The Sea of Sorrow; if you know you know.

I very much look forward to book 2!

A big thank you to NG and the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy of WSM, and I have to admit that in the meantime I received my Fairyloot special edition, which I love, and I look forward to its reread right before book 2 comes out.

4.5 stars

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️ I wanted to love this so much

Summary: Where shadows meet is a sapphic vampire fantasy that I believe is a part of a duology. It really follows 4 different main characters but it’s told from 3 povs. The book is set in a fantasy world with gods, vampires, humans, and some dark creatures. If I’m being honest it’s hard for me to even know what to put in this synopsis because there was so much going on and I DNF’d it at 45%.

I liked the entire concept. I feel like most vampire books/series take place in our world. So, this book taking place in a world of its own with very unique world building was a treat. I also usually jump at the chance to read any sapphic fantasy. So this book had all the makings for a book I really really wanted to love.

The prologue and the first few chapters were so interesting and really pulled me in and then the further and further I got the more things began to unravel. I think that’s why I kept pushing for so long.

At first the books writing felt like it was geared towards older teens and young adults but then when it started flipping to the povs of the two younger characters it started to read almost like middle grade. Some of the dialogue between the two almost felt like Disney channel dialogue, or aimed at a 10-12 year old. It almost felt like the equivalent of trying to switch back and forth between reading twilight and Percy Jackson, as if it was written for two different target audiences. I really wish this book had worked for me. I tried so hard to enjoy it.


How I rate books:
⭐️ – DNF or deeply flawed/problematic. Would not recommend.
⭐️⭐️ – Probably a DNF. Not for me, but might be okay for someone else.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Probably finished it, but not a favorite. Had notable flaws.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – A really good read. I liked it and would recommend it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Excellent. I’d recommend it to most people.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me and e-arc me to read and give an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

i had really high hopes for this, but sadly it fell flat compared to its synopsis. i did dnf around the 20% mark and eventually came back to it a few weeks later to finish up.

i felt like everything was just all over the place and there’s so much my mind just couldn’t make sense of. the timeline jumps, the narration - it was all just incredibly difficult to follow and understand.

i felt the author had a lot of great ideas and instead of dwindling them down to the best, they just threw them all in and ended up not following through with them completely. there was a lot of half finished ideas. it creates a “distance” almost between the reader and the story.

i do think there’s potential here, but unfortunately - it just wasn’t enough to pull me in just yet!

I was definitely hoping for more out of this story. The synopsis made it sound super intriguing and made me want to read but I wasnt a huge fan of the book. The world building wasnt the best. It was hard to keep track of the story too, just was all over the place.

I had high hopes for this book, expecting it to be a captivating exploration of identity and relationships among its characters. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me. None of the characters were particularly likable; instead, they came across as whiny and self-absorbed, making it difficult for me to form any connection with them. The storyline, which was meant to center on self-discovery, ultimately left me feeling unsatisfied, as it seemed that none of the characters truly learned or grew throughout their journeys. I genuinely wanted to love this book, especially given its intriguing premise of black sapphic vampires—an idea that promised depth and excitement. It’s disheartening that I couldn't immerse myself in the story as I had hoped.

I don't know if it was a wrong book wrong time kind of deal or if it's just not for me but I unfortunately DNF'd this one at about 20%. The story didn't hook me at all and found it hard to concentrate or really get into it.

Where Shadows Meet by Patrice Caldwell is her debut YA novel and touches on so many topics that are usually unseen and unheard of from these types of books. With a Black queer vampire princess with a focus on sacrifice, what’s not to love?

I really love the idea of this novel and at its root there’s a great story involved. However, parts of it get a bit convoluted and confusing. Maybe if there were less POVs and focused more on the central storyline, it would flow a little easier. I’m all for this kind of story and push for it to excel! Unfortunately, it didn’t do that for me this time, but I hope that it is many people’s favorite story to come!

If you love a good vampire, sapphic, romance with hints of angles, gods and goddesses with Black characters at its center, then this is for you!

*This was an honest review for a complimentary copy of Where Shadows Meet from Patrice Caldwell via NetGalley

DNF at 40%. This book was all over the place and I was confused the whole time I tried to read it. Thank you Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the eARC.

I really wanted to love this but unfortunately I just did not mesh well with the writing style and couldn't get into the story

3.5 stars rounded to 3!

My first sapphic vampire novel! This book had all the makings of an incredible read but just slightly missed the mark. This was an interesting take on vampires and Gods. I have a feeling this series will get better and better as it goes!