Author: Hayley Dennings
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: 6 August 2024
Pages: 319
Format: eBook - EPUB
Genre: LGBT Fantasy
Source: ARC via NetGalley
The first book in a decadent fantasy duology set in Jazz Age Harlem, where at night the dance halls come to life—and death waits in the dark.
It's 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family's thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise's mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead.
Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she'll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her.
But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can't refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city's underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike.
I liked the premise of This Ravenous Fate and was on board for a sapphic, dark vampire tale. In some ways the book did deliver, as the story held my interest throughout, but the pacing wasn't always great, feeling a bit slow at times, and I was left with several questions in terms of the world building and set up that were never fully answered, and that kept pulling my attention from the story as I pondered them. I am therefore giving this book 3.5 stars. It wasn't bad, but there were a few aspects I felt could have been tweaked to make it better. Recommended if you are looking for LGBT fantasy tales.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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