*I received an eARC and an audio review copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

I wanted to love this so badly. It's sapphic vampires in a 1920s alternate NYC with a friends to enemies to lovers romance. On paper, it was going to be a new favorite read. Unfortunately, while the ideas are all there, I think this needed another round of edits.

I like a lot of what this is doing thematically. Dennings is able to pull in a lot of conversation related to race and class and wealth and privilege, which are all relevant to today but were also big topics of conversation during the Harlem Renaissance. In that respect and in the way Dennings was able to build a believable historical Harlem that had vampires, I was completely sold. 

That being said, there were some writing choices and plot/pacing choices that left me feeling pretty meh about this book. For one, I mostly listened to the audiobook which might have caused me to notice it more than I would have if I read the ebook, but there was a repetition of "character name said" that became grating and made the conversations sound stilted. Though in some cases it felt necessary because the audiobook narrator didn't differentiate much between the voices. I also found some of the plot development felt a bit stilted. There were moments were a person's reaction felt super out of left field and then there would be something in the text indicating what changed to cause that reaction and I would have rather seen the event than been told about it later. I also found the ending incredibly rushed and rather disappointing despite what should have been a major cliffhanger. 

I don't think this is a bad book, but I don't think it met my expectations and I had some pretty major issues with the execution. Most of my issues can probably be chalked up to being a debut, so while I probably won't pick up the sequel/finale of this duology, I would be interested in seeing what Dennings writes after this.