Review of Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London

What’s better than a book about vampires? How about a book about a book series about vampires—that might turn out to be real? Kate Stayman-London combines fanfic with spicy vampire sex and no small amount of peril in Fang Fiction. I received an eARC via NetGalley thanks to being a host of Prophecy Girls podcast.

Tess drops out of grad school after someone else in her program sexually assaults her. She takes solace in her favourite fantasy series, Blood Feud. Tess doesn’t think much of the fan conspiracy theory that the vampires from the books are real. Then Octavia Yoo, one such vampire, shows up at the hotel where Tess works. She finds herself drafted to seek out Octavia’s brother, Callum, who is as dangerous as he is hot. Meanwhile, Octavia reluctantly teams up with Tess’s former roommate and best friend. Across two separate places, these women must solve the mystery of how Octavia escaped the Isle, who August Lirio is, and how they can reunite the Yoo siblings.

Fang Fiction didn’t land for me at first. Stayman-London’s characterization is sharp and lacks much subtlety. Tess and Joni gush over Blood Feud; the vampire characters, like Octavia and Callum, are melodramatic AF. Everything is cranked up to eleven, but nothing feels real. It feels flimsy, goofy, like I’m watching season 1 Buffy all over again.

Slowly but surely, however, the book won me over. First and foremost is Stayman-London’s depiction of Tess’s trauma following her rape. For a book that is otherwise tongue-in-cheek to the point of distraction, Fang Fiction deals with rape with incredible grace and sensitivity. Tess’s spiral, which is where we basically meet her after the book’s prologue, and her reluctance to talk to Joni about her rape feels so real and poignant. Stayman-London does an excellent job of showing why a survivor might withdraw from the world and from her friends. She succeeds in showing the ongoing harm that persists despite the actual event being over. For a book that otherwise seems to land firmly in the romantasy genre, this darker thread adds pathos.

The romantic parts, of course, didn’t do much for me. More invested romantasy readers might enjoy it, though this is a slow burn romance that takes a long time to get to the spicy parts. The wrong Prophecy Girl might have read this book, though—when I typed out and sent Steph a lengthy, steamy passage from later in the book, her ears metaphorically perked up. For what it’s worth, I can understand, intellectually, the heat in these pages.

The somewhat meta “fan fiction” idea is intriguing but fizzles, in my opinion, amidst the chaos of the climax. The actual Big Bad proves predictable, and the confrontation itself is underwhelming. This book doesn’t really do much when it comes to exploring the nature of vampires or their mythos beyond the bits and pieces Stayman-London needs for the story.

Fang Fiction is enjoyable, hot even if that is your thing. Romantasy readers, Buffy fans, are the right target audience, and I don’t want to damn this with faint praise: this book is full of charm and wit and intense moments that are going to satisfy. That being said, whether it’s Stayman-London’s characterization style or her plotting, this book never quite achieved its full potential in my eyes.