A riveting and blood-soaked vampire tale set in 1920s Jazz Age Harlem, starring two queer black women who need to overcome their fraught past to try to save those they love most.

As soon as I had read the synopsis for this book, this was INSTANTLY on my radar and I knew I had to snag a copy as soon as I could. The second I started reading this, I was hooked into the story and finished this during only two reading sessions, since I had to know where the plot was going.

We star Elise Saint, the heir to an empire dedicated to eradicating vampires (called reapers) within Harlem, and the world as a whole. And on the opposing side, we have Layla, one of those very same reapers who has sworn vengeance against Elise and her family for being the very cause of her change to a bloodthirsty creature. They have to fight through their past betrayals, current loyalties, and ongoing hatred and feuds to try to uncover a deadly plot that will have far-reaching consequences - not just for reapers, but the United States as a whole.

I loved the descriptions in this book, and really felt like you could get a real sense of the world around the characters. The placement felt real and grounded, and the worldbuilding created was in-depth and had layers. Getting a glimpse into the life of Elise Saint, who has lived her life essentially with a silver spoon in her mouth thanks to the steel her father makes that can kill reapers, and the empire he built around them. This privilege almost protects her from the racism of the world around them, as she has enough money to generally go and do whatever she wishes. On the other hand, we have Layla, who after her violent turning no longer has these same privileges - and yet, her strength as a reaper also, in a way shields her from much of the racist violence in their world. And yet, it’s Layla who is more in-tune with noticing this double-standard, since she can’t simply kill anyone she desires whenever she feels like it.

This novel had a wide array of characters within it, but as a whole I don’t think it was too difficult to keep track of them all. Each one had their own unique characterization and plot, so (as someone who gets easily confused when there’s a lot of characters to keep track of) following along to the plot and each character wasn’t difficult. Also, I was surprised by how much I loved Jamie as a character, and I really hope he continues to be a big supporting character in the next book.

The only pitfall I noticed while reading is that there were a few spots where I thought the conversations between the characters to be a bit rough, as well as a few plot points/character actions that didn’t fully make sense. There were a few times where character conversations felt too much like plot narrations, and not an actual conversation, that when I got to them I found a bit distracting. As well, there were a few times where a character would do something that I didn’t think quite made sense, or where their decision to do such a thing seemed to come out of nowhere as a plot device to move the story along. However, none of these things were overly distracting, and to be completely honest were not any worse than in any debut novel.

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Sourcebooks Fire for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.