ARC Review: When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke

Posted October 13, 2022 by Lisa Mandina in Review / 10 Comments

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

ARC Review:  When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria DukeWhen Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on October 4, 2022
Genres: Adult Paranormal Romance
Pages: 320
Source: the publisher
Format: ARC
My Rating: four-stars
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Blurb:

A paranormal Dumplin’ for adults, When Life Gives You Vampires is part a journey of body positivity, part a story about learning how to accept love at face value, and part a hysterical romcom told through a paranormal lens.

Twenty-five year old Lily Baines is used to waking up hungover, overweight, and underemployed. Waking up with fangs? Not so much. But when it turns out a little light necking has more serious consequences than she ever imagined, Lily’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

Tristan hadn’t meant to turn Lily—it’s against vampire law—but now that she’s here, they need to team up to save their hides. They strike a truce, fending off other vampires, Lily’s work-rival-turned-slayer, and her mother’s tone-deaf romance and fitness advice—all while Lily faces down her insecurities about the fact that she lives in a diet-obsessed world with a body that will never age, never die, and never change. Can she learn to love the (plus size) woman she’ll be forever more?

My Review

So I first got a copy of this ARC at Book Bonanza this past July. Then the publisher sent me another ARC about a month later. I didn’t get to this as soon as I’d wanted, but am glad that I finally did. It started out a little slow for me, the writing wasn’t anything extremely overwhelming, it was pretty basic. But the story itself was fun.

For the most part there wasn’t a lot of new or out there aspects to the story. But what was different that I liked was how the character was dealing with her body issues and the thought that now that she was a vampire she’d never be able to lose weight like she’d been constantly on the diet path over and over. So she had to learn to accept her body, I mean she was going to be stuck with it forever now! And then there was the hunky vamp who turned her accidentally, Tristan. He seemed as if he might be a really perfect book boyfriend/vampire, I mean he wrote romance books! But he also had things he needed to work on, and I love how that happened, even if I felt she overreacted at times.

The story had a ton of fun pop culture references. I loved the Twilight knowledge her friend used to try to help her with the situation. There was a slayer that got called, and that was a unique type of slayer, even if it also had some Buffy the Vampire details to how it worked. Although the characters made a comment that a slayer working with a vampire went against all known rules, and I was like, um, no, did you forget Buffy and Angel? Buffy and Spike?

In the end it was a fun read and it made up for the simple writing, and I hope to read more by this author in the future! It reminded me a bit of Gwenda Bond’s recent supernatural romance, which I also loved, Not Your Average Hot Guy.

Oh, and if you want to win my extra copy of this ARC, (because I’m keeping this one on my shelf) make sure you enter my monthly giveaway HERE where you can pick it from my pile of books!

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10 responses to “ARC Review: When Life Gives You Vampires by Gloria Duke

    • Lisa Mandina

      It was cute and easy. Nothing to make you have to think too much or get too emotional. Would be a fun Halloween movie too I think! And I am adoring that banner too!

  1. Oh nice! I thought this one sounded cute! Every now and then I love a cute little paranormal read. Cozy paranormal needs to be more of a thing! Lol. Definitely adding this one to my wishlist as it sounds like a light read and I enjoy having those every now and then…they are just harder to find within the paranormal genre! Great review!

    • Lisa Mandina

      I don’t know if it’s like a cozy mystery, but a cozy romance? I like the sound of that, lol. It’s a fun and quick read if you get a chance!

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