Listen, I love a vampire romance. I was a teenager when the Twilight books came out so I did my daydreaming about Edward Cullen with the best of them. I also watched Castle until it went off the rails, and loved Brooklyn 99 (despite ACAB). So a police procedural-kinda murder mystery where the serial killer vampire meets his mate in the detective? That appealed to me!

But Loving a Vampire is Total Chaos just didn’t deliver. It was kind of mid?

Part of that is because it wasn’t what I expected based on the blurb. I was looking more for that police procedural-like mystery where she doesn’t know she’s working with the murderer—and also that he’s a vampire—while he’s all up in her business and knows everything until he doesn’t know everything. Frankly, I still want to read that book, because Loving a Vampire is Total Chaos wasn’t it.

There are some funny moments, yes, and there’s definitely good banter. (I did even wonder a few times if Zander is styled after Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3, because there are things he said that I feel like Astarion either did or would say. But I didn’t hate that, because I love Astarion.) We even get plenty of obsession and romance coming from Zavier, as he [redacted for spoilers], [redacted for spoilers], and makes attempts to woo her.

But the book was missing something huge: the mystery!!

Instead of a strong through-line of Celine trying to figure out the grizzly serial murder case that’s landed in her lap, which would maybe lead her to the bigger threat to their city and lives, the book mostly has her questioning her job and trying (poorly) to resist Zavier’s charms. And while my strong ACAB moral compass is like “yes, don’t be a cop!!” I still wanted a detective story here (I’m allowed to be a hypocrite!), and there wasn’t one. The overall mystery and greater danger felt like an afterthought; it really only felt like it was there to provide a third-act conflict and introduce a character for the next book.

So while I do get why some readers have loved Loving a Vampire is Total Chaos what with it’s romance-first/everything else a distant subplot structure, I didn’t. 🤷🏻‍♀️