Not for me. It reads like fanfic, with a bare-bones plot serving as a vehicle for the juicy stuff (porn). I don’t think the author actually wanted to engage with the historical setting or the fantasy worldbuilding beyond a vague aesthetic, which is a real shame because this could have been a fascinating historical drama with a gothic twist. Instead the story oscillates between political matters one minute and “the muscular squish of boypussy” the next.

Sasza being a “stealth” vampire is hard to believe because he’s two metres tall with white hair and amber eyes.

Not that it really matters because Świetlana figures it out easily and Ilya, as it turns out, knew all along. To me it seems to parallel that have your cake and eat it too fantasy a lot of young queer people have where they want to remain closeted for the sake of safety but also don’t want to have the capacity to pass as straight/cis because they want it to be obvious who they truly are.

There’s only one scene that I can recall where Sasza being closeted is relevant, and I see what the author was doing there:

no one stood up for him despite there being more at stake (no pun intended) for Sasza himself, as a marginalised person, than there would be for his supposed allies. But the same effect could have been achieved if Sasza had been known to be a vampire, regarded as one of the good ones (albeit on thin ice). Honestly, it seems odd to introduce two types of vampire, one which is animalistic and reviled and another which is basically just a guy with a blood kink, if you’re not going to do something with that contrast. Vampires which resemble humans are tolerated because they’re not like those hideous bestiapirs. You know? And we know Sasza has the ability to transform into a bestiapir but do all vampires? His father was horrified at his transformation but is that just because he turned into a Buzzwole or was it his ability to transform at all that upset him? It’s implied to be the latter but I’m not sure. Anyway, Sasza is frustrated that his allies let him down so he immediately shifts from being closeted to going apeshit.

The violence in this book is just as gratuitous as the sex. I’m not at all opposed to either but it very much feels like this was what the author wanted to write and everything else was just half-baked filler. Which sucks because there were some interesting concepts. Wasted potential.

This novel should have been right up my alley but I found it amateurish and lacklustre. I don’t think I’ll read the sequel awkwardly teased at the end.

CONTENT WARNINGS: death, blood, gore, body horror, vomit, violence, limb loss, needles, drug use, alcoholism, self harm for magic use