There’s something fascinatingly unsettling about Kate Stayman-London’s Fang Fiction, and not for the reasons the author probably intended. A story about how fiction can save you and help you recover from the worst of traumas, it bleeds fantasy into reality in a way that feels less comforting and more chilling. The bizarre worldbuilding and weak romances kept me from really sinking my teeth into this one.

Once, Tess Rosenbloom was a PhD student in her first year at Columbia University. She loves the school and the people she met, but when she’s drugged and sexually assaulted at a Valentine’s Day party on-campus, she quits school, moves out, and disappears into a day job. Living in Brooklyn and working at a popular hotel during the overnight shift is enough to keep Tess from recollecting what happened to her all those years ago. The people from her college life haven’t given up on her, though, hoping to bring her back to school.

Tess has kept one obsession from that old day – her interest in Blood Feud, a sexy vampire romance book series. She still dabbles in the online community, even speculating that the books are real on various conspiracy forums. She agrees to meet with her old college roommate – now a professor – Joni Chaudhari for her Blood Feud-themed birthday party in New York City. But to her horror, her rapist shows up at the celebration.

Tess flees and heads back to the hotel. She agrees to go on shift early to take care of a wedding celebration – and then learns that a character from the series, Octavia Yoo, is real. And a vampire. And, to her horror, stuck in the real world. That vampires are real, period, ought to be enough of a shocker for Tess, but this tribe wants something from her. Octavia has been zapped into the real world after communing with a statue on The Island – home of the vamps in the Blood Feud world. She needs Tess to go to The Island and find her twin brother, Callum, tell him what’s happened and hopefully brainstorm up a rescue plan for her.
Tess manages to find an entry point to The Island via a false façade in Central Park connected to a set of underground tunnels. She locates Callum, who is blond and handsome and dryly sarcastic – and also the series’ villain. Battling grey weather and living off of glamoured items, Callum and Tess try to figure out how to bring Octavia back to the fictional world, while, in the real one, Joni hosts Octavia and they begin to develop a relationship. Will reality ever be the same?

No, it will not. Fang Fiction is dizzying, and asks more questions than it answers. Such as – if Tess can find her way to the Island, why can’t Octavia? The book endeavors to explain this – and it doesn’t work. What also doesn’t work is the way the author worldbuilds what glamouring can do in her universe. Glamouring of course is an illusion – the shoes and clothing and meals that the vampires wear and eat aren’t real. That doesn’t explain how Tess manages to satiate herself on illusions for the weeks and days she spends on The Island without dying of malnutrition. The worldbuilding here is confusing, amalgamated from dozens of popular vampire canons.

On another level, this is a touching book about learning how to regrow yourself after a devastating trauma, and Tess’ reactions are mostly wholly and painfully real. I didn’t find it credible, however, that after Tess ran from her life – a completely believable trauma response – and refused to tell anyone about her assault, she would confide in Callum first instead of Joni.

As a couple, Tess and Callum are very sweet – just two nice people who deserve their happily ever after. They’re why I haven’t given this one a lower grade. Their banter is goofy and immature in places, but they feel credibly like a couple in their twenties. But I never bought into Joni and Octavia’s romance, or that Octavia sees Joni as more than a piece of meat to nibble on on her way back to The Island.

Fang Fiction ends in a manner open enough – and with one of our central couples unsettled enough – to suggest a whole series may follow. Unfortunately however, this one misses the charm of Stayman-London’s previous effort, which means I won’t be taking that ride.