„It finally dawns on me that something is wrong aboard this ship, something beyond my own personal hell. It turns out, it’s actually hell for everyone. We’re on vacation!“ – Vampires at Sea, Lindsay Merbaum

Thank you to Amanda Manns for providing this free advanced reader copy through NetGalley. The opinions expressed are my own.

Spoiler Alert.

The Vampires Rebekah und Hugh decided to book a queer cruise, because, yay, they are on vacation! The immortals look forward to join orgies as they need to feed on the passengers feelings. Here comes Heaven, a non binary influencer, who wraps Hugh around their finger. Rebekah is flabbergasted and tries to get him back, somehow.

I wish I could be more positive and like this book just a tad bit more. It just didn’t provide the fun and horror I hoped for. As we read through the eyes of Rebekah, we don’t discover much of her personality. She has a superiority complex and is very egotistical. I understand that is how she is supposed to be (she is a immortal vampire, duh) but the sudden change to an anxious vampire, put me off.

I didn’t like any characters in this book. Everybody was too much but also nothing. The side characters were forgettable and Hugh had no personality at all. Everyone fell flat for me. I think if we could’ve spent more time on going deeper with Rebekah’s and Hugh’s relationship I could’ve cared more for them. Heaven was just confusing. I know that this was probably the goal but I still didn’t understand their intentions. And the dynamic between Heaven and Rebekah was just awkward to read.

The books promised to be a super queer horror-comedy with smut. I get the comedy but I didn’t enjoy the smut – and I usually like my books hot & spicy. The smut in Vampires at Sea felt too forced and too in the face on how great Rebekah performs. And yes, she performs sex (acrobatics!), it didn’t feel natural. And then there was a ongoing war? It seemed too random and sudden. I also would’ve liked more info on that. Either I forgot that it was mentioned or there was never an explanation?

I fear, I only ranted on this book so far. Vampires at Sea was not the worst I’ve ever read – it was still entertaining enough, I just would’ve liked more depth. I just was expecting more?

I still rate it 2/5.

xx, Jana