This novel weaves together two timelines: the origins of the vampire line, born from a goddess princess and her wife, and the present-day journey of Vampire Princess Leyla and her oracle-like love interest, Najja, as they set out to rescue Leyla’s kidnapped friend.

The representation and strong female characters make this story stand out, offering a refreshing take on romantasy. However, the pacing felt uneven. While the beginning and end were engaging, the middle dragged with too much dialogue and not enough action. Younger readers might not mind the slower pacing, but it felt lacking at times.

Despite that, the book sets up an exciting foundation for the sequel, which promises a faster pace. With its blend of mythology, vampires, and new adult themes, Where Shadows Meet is an intriguing start to a fresh fantasy series.

A big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Wednesday Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the ARC.
Where Shadows Meet was as beautiful as it was devastating.
A Black sapphic dark fantasy that had me emotional from the prologue alone.
Three POVs, three inner turmoils, two romances, and a lot of mommy issues.
The mental health and chronic illness representation felt real and was handled with respect. It felt relatable, and as someone who has chronic pain and mental health conditions this made me feel seen.
I loved the slow burn romance. The characters slowly learning more about the other and how maybe they might not be too different.
The unique take on vampire lore was interesting. The magic being give and take was satisfying. The self discoveries witnessed were bittersweet.
I can’t wait to read more.

3.5 stars!

When I read the premise with Black sapphic vampires, I was immediately like yes please! I thought the world created by Patrice Cardwell was super interesting, and this book was a very quick read. I also thought Favre was a super intriguing character, and I liked reading about her both in the past and present. I think what I didn't exactly love was the pacing. It seemed like for the most part things moved extremely fast with not a lot of questioning from either of the main characters, but the middle had a lot of meandering that I did not care for. That being said, I think the plot and the world were very strong, and I would be interested in reading the sequel.

Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Based on the cover and blurb for Where Shadows Meet, I had incredibly high, maybe too high of expectations. Staring with what I liked about this book - I loved the representation that Caldwell brought to this story. I’m also a huge fan of morally grey characters which Caldwell used well in this story. I also appreciated that Caldwell leaned into the darker and more violent nature of vampires. There were also parts that fell flat for me. I felt there was a mixture of both trying to do too much and also not doing enough depending on which element we’re focusing on. For this being a fantasy book, I wanted way more world building and the lore established earlier in the book. There just wasn’t enough world building for me in general but maybe that was by design since it’s the first in a series. I also felt like the book was all over the place with how the story was introduced - it jumped between story telling perspective, characters, and using journal entries to get information across. I did feel that this book ended on a high note that sets up book 2 quite well. For the audiobook, I did love the choice to use multiple narrators. With how the story was told, I think it would’ve been impossible to keep track of everything had only one narrator been used. I also felt that the narrators were captivating in how they told the story making for an enjoyable listening experience.

3.5 ⭐️

The book follows two timelines. We see the story of the Princess of the gods and her wife and how they leave the realm of the gods and begin the vampire line in the living realm. That story is interspersed throughout while also following the “present day” story of the Vampire Princess Leyla and the oracle-like love interest named Najja as they set off on a journey to recover Leyla’s abducted friend.

What I loved about this story was the representation (this isn’t your typical romantasy cast), the female empowerment, and the lessons shown.

What I felt needed improvement was the pacing. The beginning is fine as you’re always a little lost while diving into a new fantasy world and assimilating to the world building. The end speeds up and I enjoyed it. The middle chunk was a bit of a slog to get through as there just isn’t much action and felt like the characters were just having conversations meant to for you to get to know them instead of showing you through the story telling itself. A big chunk is just the girls walking and talking, which perhaps as this is marketed a bit more YA/NA that pacing won’t bother a younger audience but felt lacking to me.

I would love to see where this story is building though and it does feel the book leaves off in a very good point for book two to be faster paced.

The content is a bit bloody to be real YA but half the characters are meant to be like 18ish so new adult lenses are applied to the story.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced reader copy of Where Shadows Meet.

I will admit that I know that sapphic stories are not my thing, so that unfortunately led to me having a negative reading experience. I tried to read this story as a critic and I had a lot of thoughts.

This was a really enjoyable read! The lore for the vampires and the universe was really cool and interesting. I can't wait for the sequel!

Three POVs, Simple to follow black sapphic romance!

It took me a while to get into, but once I got through the first few chapters, at least for me, I really started to enjoy this. I may have wished there was more worldbuilding, but it wasn't terrible to create my old world added on to what was built in this book. As the first book in a series this book was very good! I can't wait to see what else this author comes with when it comes to this series. I will be on the look out.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Where Shadows Meet is a captivating young adult fantasy featuring vampires, gods, and seers known as yamaja, with a central sapphic romance that drew me in. The worldbuilding was amazing, especially with the unique take on vampires and their origins, which is a refreshing change from the usual urban fantasy setting. The use of myths and legends adds depth, and the exploration of fate versus free will is thought-provoking.

I also enjoyed the contrast between the two sapphic romances—one healthy and the other toxic—adding complexity to the relationships. The author’s immersive worldbuilding eased me in without confusion, and I’m excited to discover more in the sequel, especially about Thana.

This book begins a new series with vampires, goddesses, and a prophecy. There are multiple points of view and two timelines. This bouncing around meant I found myself not connecting with any of the characters and it did not hold my attention. It was a slow start with more action leading up to the cliffhanger end.

Thank you St. Martin's Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.

Where Shadows Meet was a great, quick read! Telling the tale of two young women with very different pasts, converge on a journey together for differing regions. I really enjoyed the world Caldwell created, and the characters seemed very well formed. I do think the political storyline did outweigh the other storyline, but I found myself breezing through this. My one fault was that I feel the ending came very abruptly. Spoiler -free, but the 'journey' was nearly 90% of the book and the ending was 10%. Although I know this is a duology and there will be further opportunity to explain the lore and what is happening, it did feel quite rushed. The conflict between the characters seemed like it came out of nowhere with an explosive reaction to a very small incident.
Overall, I certainly did enjoy the story and would pick up the next one, but the pacing did seem to lose traction at the end of the story.

Where Shadows Meet is a three POV, vampire fantasy. Long ago, Favre fell for Thana, a young goddess she sacrificed everything for. But their choices led to Thana’s destruction and Favre has been biding her time to resurrect her love. A thousand years later, the crown princess, Leyla, must travel to the Island of the Dead to save her best friend. Najja, a seer with secrets and an ulterior motive, joins her on the treacherous journey where they could lose everything.

This was a really interesting first book in the series. It didn’t fully hit for me. I would’ve liked more world building as the vampire system was super interesting and what we did see was so fascinating. The prose was beautiful and the author had lovely descriptions of everything. I am curious to read the sequel as so much is setup in this book and the ending leaves things really intense. I also quite enjoyed the journal entries at the start of some chapters!

The cast of characters was quite good. Favre and Thana have the most toxic love story but also one I’m rooting for. Everyone is quite morally grey and I really enjoyed that factor. Leyla and Najja were good leads. I enjoyed their interactions together and budding romance. Love all the sapphic relationships in this novel!!

Overall, if you like vampires and sapphic romances, I’d recommend checking this one out.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this was a fun queer vampire novel where everyone is gay and hardly anyone dies. Ahh the perfect world.

Where Shadows Meet is a multi-POV book that is also told between present day and about a thousand years ago. Part of the story is told from Favre's point of view and how the vampires came to be and how the first vampire Queen, Thana fell. The other part of the story focuses on Leyla a descendent of Thana and a seer Najji. Leyla and Najji are traveling to Nekros to rescue Leyla's best friend.

I liked this book; it was a simple fun plot. The lore of the vampires was also well built and easy to understand. Also, there was enough plot leftover for a second book to be super interesting. The only thing that I felt could have used a little more building up, was the gods. In the beginning of the book the Gods/Goddesses in this world are very present, but when we are in present day there is no mention of them. There is a little cursory praying by the main characters, but no interference or mention of the pantheon. I just felt like it would have been easy to add more to the magic of the world by including the Gods/Goddesses throughout the story and not just as they relate to the creation of vampires.

Overall, this is a fun fantasy novel, and I will be picking up the second one for sure.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press - Wednesday Books for the advanced copy, all opinions are my own.

This book has a lot of potential for any sequel that comes after. World building fell a little short for me. Normally, I don't like extensive time spent on it, but I would have liked more information other than the text book style that was given. It also is a little too insta-love for me.
I wanted more.... everything. It was just a let down.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this e-arc.

The story started off strong with two intriguing ancient characters. I was interested in finding out more about them and perhaps would have liked a book that just focused on them. With the current day characters, it felt as though the main adventure didn’t start until after half way through book with the inciting incident happening just before the middle.

I didn’t find myself caring about the characters and their situation. I wish we’d gotten to know them more personally, I felt like we didn’t get to see their personalities. It felt as though situations were introduced just to move the story forward. While the concept seemed interesting and promising, I felt as though there were too many characters with two many points of view, leading to the story becoming disjointed and not as strong as it could have been.

This book had a lot of potential, but the plot and character development fell short. I think perhaps it was because the author was trying to make it a duology where it likely could have been one book.

I loved the idea of this book, different vampires, sapphic, and an interesting story but the actual execution fell a bit short.

I found there to be a lot of info dumping and I know the authors note at the beginning told us to trust her and we'd find out really cool things in book 2... I mean book 1 needs to stand on its own.

The POVs were a bit confusing and I ultimately lost interest around 70% through.

A new take on a large genre. While this book has so many strong points and themes, I still needed a little bit more from it. With fantasy, they say read till it starts making sense. I was expecting the world to be built up so much more and have a better connection to the characters by the end than I did. This could be because this is only the first in the series and meant to tease you into the next book, but sadly, I will not be along for the ride.

This book had a lot of potential, but it fell flat. I had a lot of issues with this book, and I felt that it was kind of all over the place and everything happened too quickly. I felt that this book's vampires had too many similarities to Carissa Broadbent's vampires, and I found that a little off putting. The lore of the world happened too late into the book, I was about 60% of the way through and then I was told the story of how this world came to be. This should have been explained in the WAAAAAY beginning. I feel like the chapters of Farve should have served places where the lore could have been presented to the reader earlier. This being a short book, there needed to be established lore at the beginning besides that Thanna killed her father and turned into a vampire as a result. That does not explain why there is a kingdom of vampires now or why there are different species of them. Another bothersome point is that this book is very gruesome as vampire books tend to be and I would not put vampires in a YA category unless you play down their violent nature. The content of the book was adult BUT the dialogue and the characters were around 18 but SOOOOOOO juvenile. It was so off, I felt if the characters were early 20s then their storyline would have felt better. Their age and behavior really threw me off. When they were on their journey to the "underworld" there was not conversation about how Leyla could be in the sun when Thanna could not or any discussion of food and what she was eating. I felt that there were a lot of inconsistencies with the vampires as if their abilities were not really well thought out.
Overall, I did not really enjoy this book and felt it was poorly written and had the potential to be great. I do not think I would continue this series whatsoever.

Thank you NetGalley for this e-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

I've just emerged from the spellbinding world of "Where Shadow Meets" by Patrice Caldwell, and I'm still reeling from the experience. This multi-POV narrative took me on a thrilling journey through interchanging timelines, each perspective adding depth to an already intricate plot.

Every page turn revealed new layers, demanding my full attention but rewarding me generously. The narrative structure is ingenious, with each piece clicking into place to unveil a breathtaking bigger picture.

At its core, this tale pulses with true love, duty, and destiny. I found myself deeply invested in the journeys of these women, each trapped by circumstances, fighting against predetermined roles. Their sacrifices and losses hit me hard, adding raw emotional depth.

The relationships in this story are a maze of delightful surprises. It was like piecing together a jigsaw in the dark, each revelation illuminating another corner of this intricately crafted world.

I must warn you, this isn't a light read. It requires concentration to fully appreciate the nuances of the plot and the subtle interplay between characters. But believe me, it's worth every ounce of effort.

As the first in a series, "Where Shadow Meets" sets the stage for an epic fantasy saga. The world-building is rich, the characters are deliciously complex, and the plot is utterly captivating. Brace yourselves for a truly magical journey.

Thank you, Wednesday Books and NetGalley, for my free book.