3.5 stars

I liked this alright but there were some things that didn't work for me. When it was good, I was entranced by the world and the love story. But . . . There is some gender-essentialist language: a long-running joke about big dick energy vs. little dick energy. I didn't like how unrelenting Devraj was when it came to pursuing Isadora. She often said, "no" to his advances and he would just laugh. Devraj is a famous Bollywood actor and a powerful vampire, he isn't used to women turning him down so his ego takes a hit every time Isadora says, "no" to him. I don't know, maybe I'm feeling sensitive lately but that didn't sit well with me.

Bang in the Night Bingo: Bite Me (Vampire Romance) ( )

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶🌶/4

**Summary & Thoughts**

Isadora is the most quiet Savoie sister. She'd happily spend all of her time in her greenhouse tending her flowers or volunteering at the local dog shelter, lending her healing abilities where she can.

Devraj is a badass vampire warrior, and best friend of the NOLA vampire overload Ruben. He's in town to solve the mystery of some local missing girls when he accidentally hits Iz with his car.

These two couldn't be more different, but through working together to solve the case and save the missing girls, snarky fighting turns into flirting.... which then turns into a raging inferno of sexual tension and desire. Isadora may be the quiet one... but it's always the quiet ones isn't it? ;-P While I loved watching them learn to trust one another and fall deeply in love... I have two things that kept this from a full five star for me.

**Spoilers ahead**

1) The drawn out nature of the "we're too different to work out" narrative. I get it, that's the whole point of an opposites attract story. However, the amount of holding on to that idea instead of accepting their feelings and trying to make it work... or at least having a freaking conversation about it. There was too much time spent on this topic for me.

2) The blood-mates thing. I get werewolves have mates. It's part of the wolf lore / science that works. But this book (and the rest of the series) lean heavily on the "mates" narrative... and in many of the books I just don't see the point. In the first book there was a need for that kind of more primal connection to ensure that Mateo didn't kill Evie, even while under some heavy spellwork. But in this one... all of the signs were there that Iz and Dev were just falling in love. They intrigued, inspired, and delighted each other. Finding out new things just made each of them fall harder. And even at the end when Dev needed to find her... he was already talked up as being this legendary Vampire warrior that could track anything. So I just didn't see the need to add the mates trope here instead of just "I love this person and I choose them". Sometimes choice is more powerful than fate, and I would have liked to see that here instead of just falling back on the trope. These two have a beautiful love story all on their own, adding the mates trope didn't add anything to the story for me.

**Fav Quotes**

“First of all, love. This is not a Porsche. This is a Diablo GT Lamborghini, one of the finest Italian cars money can buy.” (debatable but oooook)

"I didn’t dislike men. I just had no need of them. I could handle all of my needs by myself."

"Christ. One smile, and I was devastated. Lost. Swimming in an ocean of what-the-fuck."

**Tropes & Themes** - Dual POV, Witch x Vampire, Opposites Attract, Fated Mates, BIPOC MMC

**Author quirk** See full note on book 1 of this series... but the brand name callouts continued to be jarring in this book as well and disrupted my reading experience a few times. ( )

The predecessor to 'Wolf Gone Wild', this was a decent followup to the 'Stay & Spell' series which centers around the next Savoie sister in line, Isadore.

Isadore was far more relatable and due to our similarities, I was able to connect with her a lot more than with Evie. Then we have our vampire Bollywood star, Devraj Kumar (who I picture as Ranveer Singh because I mean… look at him!). He was woo-wee hot! And the diversity, bravo! They were complete opposites in every single way but what I liked the most about their relationship besides the scorching chemistry was how they were able to balance each other and work seamlessly together when searching for the missing women.

Addition to that, the side characters were everything! I seriously can't wait to read Jules and Ruben's story and what led to their disastrous relationship as well as Violet and Nico. The cousin to Mateo, Nico seems like a troublemaker and I'm here for it.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed this more than 'Wolf Gone Wild' and can't wait to see which sister is next. Fingers crossed it's Ruben and Violets because I need to know what their history was and the nature of their relationship.

( )

4.5 stars ( )

DNF at 16%. No chemistry, just lots of objectification of the male MC, which would maybe be less ick if not for the fact that this is the second in the series and second in which Cross has paired a white woman with a man of color. I got to the wet t-shirt part of the program and needed to move along.

There’s also a small-penis joke at the beginning, so trans readers may want to avoid.