4.18.2025 | Friday

How to Fake-Date a Vampire

Item: How to Fake-Date a Vampire
Rating: 4.5
Author: Kim

category: Book Reviews
tag(s): adult
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title: How to Fake-Date a Vampire
author: Linsey Hall
series: Charming Cove #2
published: 8.31.2023
publisher: Bonnie Doon Press
genre(s): cozy mystery, paranormal, romance
pages: 297
source: bought
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | BookBub | BookHype | StoryGraph | Goodreads
rating:

| series rating:

the blurb

Faking it with a vampire duke should be easy, right?
I’ve got one chance to prove to my coven that I’m worth my wand. But to do it, I'm going to have to make a deal with a vampire duke. I get to use his gorgeous estate in Cornwall to host the Beltane Ball--and in exchange, I'll pretend to be his girlfriend. But it's all a show for his grandmother.
The rules of our fake relationship are simple:No flirting. No emotion. No sex. Easy, right?
Except I can't seem to ignore the allure of the infuriating and devastatingly sexy vampire. Falling for a duke isn’t an option, though. I would lose the anonymity that protects me and my coven, and that would ruin my life--and the lives of the other witches in my coven.
So yeah, totally easy.
How to Fake-Date a Vampire is a fun, frothy romantic comedy full of laughter, love, and magical hijinks. It’s the second in a series of stand alone romances set in the seaside village of Charming Cove. The books do not need to be read in order.

a few notes

POV: 1st person; dual
setting: England
keywords/phrases: vampire, found family, community
tropes: hero’s journey, unlikely allies, happy ending, powerful artifacts, fake relationships, the misunderstanding
spice: 1/5🔥
language: 0/5🤬

public reading: safe
cover notes: eye-catching
mood reading: in the mood for beautiful found-family dynamics, touching moments
bonus points: Penelope, the skunk familiar! She’s sassy!

my review

I had such mixed feelings with this installment in the Charming Cove trilogy. I loved the first one, and I enjoyed this one, but it just didn’t hit the same way for me.

I liked Emma, a witch novice who is trying to earn her place as an official witch within the Aurora Coven. For her character, that means entrance into a community, a family of sorts, which are things she desperately wants for herself. It was that truly informed her character throughout the book. But there was a part of her that was often judgmental toward the lifestyles and trappings of Alaric and his family. It was a weird dichotomy, even as she adored them.

Alaric as a vampire… it was often hard to remember that aspect of his character. I’m fine with an author eschewing the usual vampy tropes/myths, but I’m not so fine with nothing to replace it. Other than a few off-hand comments about the lack of visible fangs, a few more about blood in their drinks, there was absolutely nothing otherworldly about any of them. They were entirely humanized, which felt a little simplistic.

My last complaint was the third-act misunderstanding. It happened, and then it ended without much of a fuss. It was a little underwhelming, as he basically showed up and looked good, and so all was forgiven. Hmm.

Other than that, I enjoyed the magical elements of the world. The revelation sticks and joy batteries were something new I’ve never seen in paranormal stories, so that was interesting. But really, the best magical part of the story was Penelope, the skunky familiar to Emma. She was a sassy girl with a love of coffee and pastries. So adorable!

About Linsey Hall

Before becoming a writer, Linsey was an archaeologist who studied shipwrecks in all kinds of water, from the tropics to muddy rivers (and she has a distinct preference for one over the other). After a decade of tromping around in search of old bits of stuff, she settled down to start penning her own adventure novels and is freaking delighted that people seem to like them. Since life is better with a little (or a lot of) magic, she writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance.