The Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee

TL;DR: A strong start with a lackluster landing.
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much to the publisher!

Plot: A vampire hunter enrolls in a vampire academy to find a lost book, instead falls in love and becomes a bit 2 dimensional.
Characters: Ehhhhh… not my favorite. I struggle to remember these guys just a few days later.
Setting: This had potential! It wasn’t my favorite setting but it had potential.
Dark Academia/Fantasy: I’m going to be honest, there wasn’t much of anything here besides ‘lusting after a vampire’ that I can pinpoint for a good genre/flavor on this.

Summary:

“Then her red eyes are on mine, gentle, deadly. She takes her time kissing my neck. I pull her closer and say: Bite me.”

In the mists of the Scottish Highlands is a university where vampire students study alongside humans.

Rebecca Charity is a vampire hunter undercover at the university, searching for the mysterious Book of Blood and Roses, a lost compendium of ways to kill vampires. If she finds it, she’ll be one step closer to avenging her parents, who were slain by those creatures of the night.

But when Rebecca arrives, she finds something unexpected: a coffin. Her new roommate is Aliz Astra, scion of one of the most powerful vampire families… and the most beautiful woman Rebecca has ever met.

The maddeningly gorgeous Aliz is everything that Rebecca has always hated, but also everything she ever wanted, and now Rebecca doesn’t know if she wants to kiss or kill her.

When Aliz rescues her from a vampire attack one moonlit night, she accidentally makes Rebecca her familiar. Now, they must work together to break the curse, but as they get closer to solving the mystery, Rebecca and Aliz get closer, too.

Thoughts:

The start to this was so strong, I was very much in it! I was excited, it was giving some dark academia vibes with sapphic vampire romance coming. A Buffy style hero who felt unique enough that I was hooked. Unfortunately I was lost after about 20%, and things began to unravel for me from there.

Our main character, Rebecca, hunts vampires because they killed her family. A familiar trope (with a familiar ending). She enrolls in an exclusive academy to attempt to find a book lost to time that will help her group in killing vampires more effectively. Instead of the book she finds love and the ‘truth’ about her group.

There was very, very little here that surprised me. If you’ve read anything with these familiar beats, you’ll likely also not be surprised. I was also very confused by the tonal shift from dark and moody to an almost jovial one after about the 30% mark. I didn’t love it. I really didn’t. If you go in with an expectation that it ends up more light hearted and something predictable I think you’ll have a lot more fun. So just be aware.