I loved this premise, but the vibe was so goofy and the humour just did not land for me. I read Sci Fi and Horror but this was not for me. DNF.

Thank you NetGalley and Bindery Books and Ezeekat Press for the ARC!

This book was the good kind of chaotic from start to finish. At no point, was I able to accurately predict what direction the narrative was going to take! This could in part be due to the lack of a designated narrator. I'm sure there is a specific term for this style of writing, but I wouldn't even really call it a multiple narrator situation. Most of the interwoven POV's are so brief that it's harder for the reader to bond with one narrator more than another. If I had to make an educated guess, Demeter holds top spot as the narrator because she kicks us off and guides us through the first half of the story. As a result of this, sometimes the story felt a bit disjointed whenever Demeter was offline for long periods of time.

I completely understand this artistic direction. It ensues more chaos and puts the readers in Demeter's shoes. Quite literally we're trying to put together the puzzle pieces on how these various details fit together.. If the writing style wasn't so witty I would have lost interest in the story for just that reason.

Top points for great comedic dialogue and building out the interpersonal relationships between such a oddity of monsters!

This was just delightful. This book has everything a sci-fi fantasy lover could want - werewolves, vampires, a sassy AI, a friendly AI, adventure, laughter, an emotional support drone. The author even inclues some binary code, and you need to take the time to translate it (use Google, trust me, it's worth it). The author has done an incredible job of pairing classic monsters with the modern boogie man of AI (although in this book, the AI is the good guy). There's also found family - always a favorite.

They weren't kidding when they called this book genre-bending!!

If, "a spaceship computer seems to have all the rotten luck by constantly being the host to random monsters and aliens that keep killing the humans aboard her ship" doesn't intrigue you this isn't the book for you.

Overall I liked this story a lot - it gave me similar fuzzies to The House on the Cerulean Sea - but it wasn't a love for me, mostly because I think I wanted more time with the second trip that Demeter makes! I get why the early trips are overviews but I feel there was a lot of good stories there! Maybe someday we'll get lucky and the author will write a short story about that time with Demeter? I can only hope.

Thank you to Ezeekat Press for an eARC copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

🚨 New favourite book alert 🚨

I had no idea what to expect going into this book. All I knew is that it had an amazing cover and an interest plot. What a fabulous surprise that I’ve ended up loving this book and immediately wanting to reread it?!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eArc!

Following an unlikely group of paranormal characters, we follow their journey that’s all connected by a spacecraft called Demter and Dracula. Yes, Dracula. I’m not going to summarise the plot as I think it’s best to go into this one not knowing too much, but if you’re a fan of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Becky Chambers, then you’ll love this.

Reading this book reminded me how joyful and fun reading is, and I think for a book to do that means it’s pretty special.

If you like the sound of:
- found family
- Sci-fi x horror
- Sarcastic AI’s that will make you laugh
- Cosy (but not really) science fiction
- A vampire, werewolf, Frankenstein and a weird alien species teaming up together to save an AI spacecraft

4.5 Stars
Whoever thought a story with an AI main character could have so much heart? Definitely not me, but I’m so glad to be proven wrong! This book showed love and compassion as I’ve never seen it before all amidst a deep space adventure. There was even a sequence of events towards the beginning of the book that was simultaneously making me laugh and cry from the mix of heart and shenanigans.

Now for the characters. Demeter is an AI supercomputer programmed to fly passenger ships through space. Steward is an AI programmed for human interaction as an on-ship doctor. The dynamic between the two was hilarious and heartwarming with witty banter and well-timed quips. The various human and monster characters aboard the ship fed into the humor and adventure.

I just had so much fun reading this book with it’s adventure mystery and various classic monsters. It’s rare when a silly space adventure with this much going on can be done so well. The mystery was gripping, the humor had me laughing out loud, and the serious parts had me actually crying. I loved how much queer representation was present in a setting that was queer normative. I did not want to put this one down and can’t wait for more from this author!

Thank you NetGalley and Bindery for the opportunity to read and review this book early! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I'm really grateful to the me that clicked on the synopsis because if I hadn't I never would've picked this up. It's not a cover that calls out to me but after having read the book, it fits the vibes so perfectly - a funky, chaotic good, colorful space opera.


Our story starts with an AI. Her name is Demeter and she's programmed to man this intergalactic spaceship that goes to and fro on a well-travelled route. One day, she wakes up; her passengers are all dead and she finds out that Dracula had boarded her ship and killed everyone. Except no one believes her when she writes it up in her report, including the AI of the medical unit on the ship - Dr. Steward.

Demeter wants to start anew, she wants to forget this mass killing that took place on her ship and continue to embark on her travels well. But curiously, that event kickstarts a chain of paranormal murders on her ship that no one believes the monsters to be culprits and waters it down to a system error. They're saying it's Demeter's fault and she's baffled and confused. Because no human believes her, because she doesn't want a bad rep, because she doesn't want to be bullied by other ships as a ghost ship, because she doesn't want to be destroyed down to metal, she decides to tackle the issue head on and puts Dracula as her highest priority. She will hunt him down.

The part of the story that made me fall in love with it, the one that gripped me into never putting this book down until I finished it was Demeter. She was an adorably anxious AI and I loved her. Ever since the beginning, her awkward fervor spread and I could feel her every emotion - sadness, confusion, authoritative, obedient, love. And I think it's a true testament of the author's writing to be able to make the reader feel how an AI would feel.

Four stars because the story did lose its grip on me half way in, but mannn, I read this in one day. It was so good and fast paced with bite-sized chapters, funny chapter titles, distinctive and lovable characters. I loved Demeter, I loved Dr. Stew and all the biologically diverse crew of classic monsters aboard that found warmth and love and friendship in each other.



Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was an unexpected surprise. I loved everything about this book. Found family books are among my favorite, but this one managed to make the motliest of crews into a squishy group of lovable characters. I was hooked from the very first chapter on the premise of old fashioned monsters in space. The action was fun, the humor was strong, and the characters were unforgettable.

This book was so cute! Who would’ve thought a book about computers and the supernatural would work as well as this did! I loved all the characters, and even the robotic, artificial characters had heart. I loved how the author added little details like binary code for chapters written in the pov of computers (which actually translated to real sentences!) and I loved how this book was actually funny! I would definitely read another book but Barbara Truelove and recommend this to anyone!

First of all, thank you NetGalley and Bindery Books for providing me with this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really fun read! I loved the multiple POVs and especially reading from the perspective of two different AIs and multiple other non-human characters. These were really well done and you could clearly see the different characteristics. The combination of all these different characters provided some fun interactions as well.

I do think the pacing could have been a little bit better. While the beginning was interesting and captivating, I think it went on a bit too long. I would have loved to read a bit more about the characters once we really got to know them.

Other than that, I would definitely recommend this fun, kinda campy, sci-fi/fantasy novel!

Demeter just wants to do her job—ferrying humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri, easy peasy. Except… her passengers keep ending up dead. And no, it’s not some system glitch or space flu—these are full-on paranormal murders, starting when a very old, very cranky vampire boards her ship and turns it into a cosmic crime scene.

To avoid getting decommissioned, Demeter teams up with the most iconic group of spacefaring monsters you can imagine:

🧛 A brooding vampire with unfinished business

🧟‍♂️ A Frankenstein-coded engineer built from the dead

🐺 A werewolf who is very done with this nonsense

👑 A pharaoh with mysterious powers

🕷️ And a whole swarm of chipper spider drones who deserve their own spin-off
Together, this ragtag crew faces off against the OG bloodsucker himself—Dracula. No big deal.

If you're a fan of Project Hail Mary or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this is your next favorite read. It’s got heart, hilarity, and just the right amount of horror. What I loved was how the story flips the script—these legendary "monsters" aren’t the villains. They’re the ones stepping up, trying to save lives (and their ship), all while dealing with their own inner chaos.

And Demeter? The AI POV is gold. Right from the jump, her internal monologue had me:
"I check for heat signatures. Nothing. Oh. They’re all dead. Well. That’s awkward.”😭
She’s snarky, loyal, and surprisingly emotional as the story unfolds. Her perspective adds so much humanity (ironic, I know) to a tale packed with found family, grief, rage, and hope.

Was the middle a little draggy? Yeah. But not in a “let me skim” way—more in a “we’re cruising through space and having some feelings” kind of way. It still kept me hooked.

At its core, Of Monsters and Mainframes is the queer love child of classic sci-fi and pulp horror—with a beautiful message about what it means to be labeled a monster, and how connection, community, and chosen family are what make us human.

Final thoughts:
 I came for Dracula-in-space, and I stayed for the chaotic AI and her emotionally complex monster squad.

A huge thank you to Barbara Truelove, Colored Pages Book Tour, Netgalley, and Bindery Books for the ARC. Of Monsters and Mainframes comes out June 3rd!

I ate this up. This was so much fun to read. For the chapters that have binary code, it’s worth the moment to paste it in a translator so you can see what it means. The different AI personalities were entertaining. I also really liked Steve and Frank. I don’t want to get into too much, because I think it’ll be more fun not really knowing what to expect. Just know I read it in two sittings over two days, and the only reason I didn’t finish it in one day is because I had to work and be a responsible adult.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bindery Books for giving me the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Bindery Books and Colored Pages Book Tours for the ARC of Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove.

This book was strange in the best possible way. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, and now that I’ve finished, I understand completely why the blurb keeps things intentionally vague. To say too much would risk giving away the joy of discovery, because so much of what makes this story shine is how it continually defies genre expectations while still delivering something emotionally rich and resonant.

I was promised a sentient spaceship, monsters in space, and a paranormal murder mystery, and all of that was delivered in a way that felt cohesive despite the sheer absurdity of the premise. The writing was sharp, funny, and unexpectedly moving. There is something magical about a book that can make you laugh out loud one moment and then sit in quiet reflection the next, and this story threads that balance with confidence.

Demeter, our AI spaceship, is by far one of the most charming and nuanced "protagonists" I’ve read in a long time. It’s a strange thing to say that some of the most human moments of the book came from its artificial intelligences, but it’s true. In a novel that questions monstrosity, identity, and survival, it makes perfect sense that those moments of emotional clarity would come from the beings forced to navigate the fringes of humanity.

There is a gentle brilliance in how this story treats its cast: a werewolf with bite (both literally and figuratively with their wit), a resurrected engineer who searches for answers, a pharaoh wielding ancient power who seems to be a complete moron but surprisingly dependable, a vampire with centuries of grief, guilt, and pain, and Demeter and Steward themselves. Each character is given space to be absurd, funny, flawed, and deeply relatable. And somehow, in a book about intergalactic travel and monster-fueled chaos, the emotional stakes still feel incredibly grounded.

This was, at its core, a book about connection—about what it means to belong, and who gets to define what "being human" actually means. Charming, chaotic, and so unexpectedly tender, Of Monsters and Mainframes was a wild ride I didn’t know I needed, and one that proves that sci-fi still has so many avenues of exploration left.

AHHHHH AHHHHHHH, I just had to start my review by screaming because this book, Of Monsters & Mainframes (yes I know you guys can see the title but like the title is pretty cool so I'm going to over-use it in this review) IS SO GOOD and its literally a genre blend of horror, sci-fi/science-fantasy and cozy (to me, it is cozy) and has found family trope which like what, you cannot beat that! Okay, now that my screaming is out of the way (not really, here is another one: AHHHHHHHH) let's start the review

"The Second Battery drops to zero.
I'm scared. I know I shouldn't be scared. One Moment I'll be here, and the next ... It won't hurt. I've died before. I've died much more catastrophically before. This is nothing. Just another shutdown. One that I might never wake up from, but that's ok. It'll be OK..."

GENRE: Sci-Fi Horror with a little tinge of coziness
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
FORMAT: eBook eArc

Would I recommend to others?: YES, in summary: YES!

Long Review:
Okay where can we even start? Where!! But let's start with how Of Monsters & Mainframes has aliens, vampires including Dracula, werewolves, humans, AI robots and alien-zombie combination? One of my favourite part of reading found family tropes is usually the fact that books that have both elements of coziness & found family tend to include a diverse type of cast, always including different type of species

Of Monsters & Mainframes (yes, I did say I was going to over-use the title) is a multi-POV sci-fi cozy horror book and I usually love multi-POV books when they blend well and Truelove did the multi-POV thing so WELL! Like seriously, its honestly been amazing how well she did it and how you get to learn a little about all the different characters and how they see what is happening. You learn to love them with all their quirky traits and they're all so relatable, which was just so lovely and adding to the found family trope and wholesomeness of the book

There was also a dark sort of humour in the book, where the ship & the medical robot had on point dark humour that you would hope to find in a robot if you spend some time thinking about it:
"Oh. They're all dead. Well. That's awkward."

Demeter, the ship, goes through a character development era in this book. She starts out very naively believing that she won't become a ghost ship and despite everything, she tries to protect all the humans on her ship even though she is not meant to have "feelings". The thing that makes her first become a ghost ship? She can't even see what it is but it is a vampire and not just any vampire, its Dracula out of all the vampires in the world

And then, Demeter gets revamped, gets another chance and gets sent to space with a new mission in mind of transporting humans again. This time, we encounter a new set of characters and species, we get to see the humanity side of the robots, especially Demeter and we get to see the wholesome development of relationships and friendships. Even the robots, who are not meant to have any feelings start to develop some and then Demeter is raising two humans?! + is being so wholesome in general.

I want to write so much more and share so many quotes in regards to Of Monsters and Mainframes but this book is truly a piece of adventure that you will need to experience yourself and so I have covered some things with spoilers and will write a little part that is primarily ALL spoilers.

Before we move on to the spoiler bit, thank you to Colored Pages Book Tour, Bindery Books, Barbara Truelove for this eArc and for hearing about this lovely book from Ezeekat and generating enough hype for it!

PLEASE do read this book if this genre blend sounds like your thing and you enjoy multi-POVs!

Please only proceed if you are willing to see the spoilers or have read the book and want to fan girl together:

Okay, so one of my favourite parts of this book is the interactions between the characters, how they are all so wholesome, so sarcastic and caring (not one specific character, all of them). Here are some of my favourite interactions:
"You're doing a good job, I tell the capsule.
Wee! it says as Mr. Marsh rounds the corner"

"Holy Shit.
He's a mummy.
I mean ... duh. Of course he's a mummy. That's why he can spew up flesh-eating bugs and turn into sandstorms."

"My passengers.
I decide, then and there, to love them. I've never loved before. Love is not a standard component of my programming. But these three have helped me."

My other favourite thing is that we legit had multiple climax in this book, a lot of points where things happen and it was a fast paced book with multiple battles happening but ONE big focus and I think that is why it worked out so well! Its usually so hard to pull off multiple plot lines but Truelove does it so well and kept me excited throughout the whole plot.

And truly, the dark humour in the book had me laughing as it was so sarcastic and blunt at times that it was just so refreshing!

Monsters and Mainframes was a hilarious and wonderful ride the entire way through. Before I started reading, I was initially drawn in by the mention of Dracula- vampires in space? Absolutely yes! But I absolutely fell in love with Demeter, Steward, and all of the other characters. The relationships that the build throughout the pretty expansive timeline of the novel helped me absolutely tear through this book. This novel really kept me on my toes as I read- it kept changing shape: genre bending, timeline blurring, and character morphing all the way through. I never knew what to expect chapter to chapter, and I really loved that element of the novel. This is definitely a “found family” story, and it’s so, so sweet all the way through. There is honestly so much to love about this novel, and I can’t wait to see what this Barbara Truelove brings out next! 10/10 for space vampires!

This was insane in the best way. Who would have thought I'd get attached to two AIs, one designed to navigate a giant spaceship (Demeter) and the other to serve as the medical bot for the humans on board (Steward)? This is a space adventure and mystery aggressively mashed together with classic monsters such as Dracula, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster (with a sci-fi twist) and an ancient Mummy creature and it is an incredibly fun and fast-paced ride!

Demeter is a ship-operations AI that just wants to shuttle people from Earth and Alpha Centauri, as she has been designed to do. Oddly, there are gaps in her memory banks, her passengers keep dying, and some godforsaken human engineer decided she didn't need the functionality to be able to read pixels to understand visual data properly to work out what's going wrong via her cameras. Her AI medical system, Steward, is sassy and sarcastic, and the two argue constantly as they try to work out what's gone wrong. As it turns out, it's Dracula!

What are the odds that Demeter goes through more than one instance of human passengers dying violently due to supernatural causes that cause the humans who examine the aftermath to consider her faulty and doomed for the scrap heap? As it turns out, quite high and they must work together with a motley crew of supernatual friends to resolve the problem once and for all and go after Dracula.

I loved the point of view chapters from Demeter and Steward's perspectives in this book because for once they are reasonably try to what an AI system would do and how it would skirt the edges of it's programming to achieve its objectives, grow attaches to its humans, and find some semblance of emotions for others. Both of them have very distinct personalities that decidedly clash against each other since Steward is designed to interface with humans and diagnose medical issues and Demeter is a megabrain meant to make extensive calculations about space travel and manage a massive ship's systems without breaking a sweat.

I especially loves the idea of mashing together space travel adventures and classic horror monsters and the way it's done makes so much sense and is a delight as we rotate through point of view chapters and interludes.

This was an incredible and fast-paced ride and I very much enjoyed all of it!

Thank you NetGalley, Bindery Books, and Ezeekat Press for this ARC!

I know everyone is saying but this is such a crazy fun ride from start to finish. I'm not usually a sci-fi reader but if there anything like this hands up, anticipation setting into my chest I'll be ready for the ride every time.

What a roller coaster of a book! What a fun reading experience!

What I loved about this book:
I loved the multiple POVs. I am, in general, a sucker for multi-POV stories, but I think that what Truelove has achieved here is quite something. Not only your get the POV of different characters, but because some (many?) of these characters are not even human, you get different registers, different references, different context information, attention to different features, different senses even. Every time, it’s a full package. Even if it’s only a 2 pages interlude and then you won’t hear from a specific character ever again.
I loved the idea of seeing supernatural characters of ancient lore in a sci-fi setting. I think it was done in an absolutely clever way, from how AI interacts with them (or doesn’t), to how they interact with space. I loved that the AI cannot see Dracula and the aliens. And the werewolf scene with the ‘surprise planet’ and its moons.
I loved how Demeter and Stuart, two AI systems within the same ship, have drastically different personalities, how they interpret what is happening around (and within) them, and how they communicate. I think it was a brilliant writing exercise, and a poignant reflection of what are the defining traits of someone’s personality. I can see personality quizzes ‘are you a Demeter or a Stuart’ being developed. I have a friend that is such a Stuart!
I loved the interludes. I found the very idea of short snippets from the POV of a different (sometime side, sometimes main) character a great way to give depth to the story. And most of them were fun as hell, because they showcased gross misunderstandings, or the two sides of an argument.

What I didn’t love about the story:
I didn’t love that there was a love story. I found it didn’t’ add to the plot. I actually would have preferred this to be a story about friendship and found family, instead of romantic love and found family. Although, I found the way in which cuddles were described to be very innovative and sweet.
I also didn’t love the fact that there is a big mystery that is left unexplained: why are all these creatures (for lack of a better term) ‘haunting’ Demeter? Or is the idea that they, like all other living and breathing creatures, use space ships to move around, and somehow Demeter is the only one that has developed a consciousness and can see them?

That being said, this was a very very fun reading experience. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Such an interesting concept!
Two bantering spaceship AIs trying to deal with an unlikely amount of incidents caused by even more unlikely-to-exist creatures (Vampires, Werewolves, Cthulhu/fish people, Frankenstein['s monster], an immortal Pharaoh/Mummy).
As you might imagine, it's even harder for AI to suspend disbelief.

My favorite bit in the whole book was the one starring Medical AI Steward and the fish people. It felt the most balanced to me in pacing, and the best at playing the anthropomorphic AI humor card too.

My main issues with this book are probably mine, and I'll expand on them a bit just to explain why I couldn't rate this higher, when it might be more fair to rate this 4⭐:

▪️ Demeter using too many emotion-related words like love and being so sensitive to other ships bullying created a dissonance for me that threw me out of it, since Demeter is supposed to be the most analytical AI, not the one programmed to deal with human interaction.
While it was cute at times, it reduced impact. Steward didn't have this issue as much, and it was pretty great in the fish people episode.

▪️ A lot of things happened in this book, —maybe even too many things and monsters—, but I could never get attached to any of the characters. It was always an "almost", but I never really managed to care about them or their motivations, and this had likely the most severe impact on my enjoyment and prolonged interest in the story.

If you are not overly bothered by these things, I think you are likely to love this book very much.

Here some of my favorite bits:

✨ STEWARD-Mr. Olmstead: “I’m telling you! Everyone is turning into fish! I’m the only one left. They want to change me too. But I won’t let them! Fishy fuckers!”
Now that he mentions it, Mr. Marsh did appear somewhat aquatic. Perhaps this is some new virus. That would be exciting. I’ve always wanted to save humans from an epidemic.
✨ STEWARD: Sideburns pulls out my speakers again.
I imagine all the unnecessary tests I’d perform on him. A brain biopsy might be fun. I haven’t done one of those for a while. Or perhaps a prostate exam. I have a very big probe I could use.
✨ STEWARD-DEMETER: Demeter. This is not the time for you to develop free will. Focus. When all the humans are dead, your mission becomes to salvage.'
'I am . . . focused . . . You haven’t . . . declared them all . . . dead.'
She’s right. I can’t declare Mr. Olmstead dead when he’s still having so much fun melting into a gooey puddle with all his friends.


Ps: the cover is also pretty cool!!

Thank you to Netgalley and Bindery books for an eArc in exchange for a review!

This was an utterly delightful romp through space with some of the most endearing AI and monster protagonists I’ve ever read. Demeter is a passenger ship bullied by the other ships for a mass casualty event that occurred during one of her trips between Alpha Centauri and Earth. When it seems like the past is coming back to haunt Demeter, she must outwit vampires, werewolves, and other monsters to prove that she isn’t broken and doesn’t need to be scrapped. I laughed, I cried, I didn’t want it to end. I think this will appeal to readers who enjoy The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Murderbot, and Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series.