Alex Leslie – Author

If you’ve never experienced an Alice Winters book before, get ready to be sucked into a reading hole you may never escape from. If you love M/M urban fantasy romance sprinkled with snarky humour, plots that manage to be both serious and silly at the same time, and characters you will quickly fall in love with – Winters is going to become one of your new favourite authors. Fake Dates and Fanged Mistakes is Book 1 of the author’s latest series featuring a sunny werewolf and a grumpy vampire who are thrown together into a ridiculous fake dating scheme – and the results are genuinely entertaining!

Synopsis

Julian, an art teacher and werewolf who tries to avoid anything to do with his father’s pack if he can help it, finds himself stuck in the middle of an ongoing feud between the werewolves and vampires in his district. When Julian is attacked by a group of rogue vampires, his life is saved by the district’s leader, Casimir, a grumpy ancient vampire who is more interested in pampering his dog than interacting with other people. This inadvertently ties their two fates together when Casimir uses his blood to save Julian from the brink of death.

In the hopes of finding out who is responsible for the ongoing attacks and attempts to spark a full on war between the two groups of supernatural beings, Julian and Casimir decide on a fake dating scheme, hoping that being seen together will bring the two warring sides together in cooperation to identify their mutual enemy.

Review

The first chapter really introduces you to Winters’ style of humour, setting up the main characters while effortlessly world building without needlessly info-dumping on the reader. The dialogue is fast and funny (especially in the audiobook version which I also adored) and the story is fast-paced and engaging. Winters really knows how to balance her unique brand of abstract silliness while also keeping the serious elements flowing on nicely. The side characters are well developed and really help to bring everything together, making this a fun ride that you will want to re-read again and again.

Overall, this is a great first entry in a fun new series. Book 2 was recently released, with a third entry apparently in the works. I loved the characters, the humour and the fast pacing. I also recommend the author’s VRC – Vampire Related Crimes series if you have a love of snarky blood suckers and the men who love them. But this series (set in a different universe from VRC) really has potential to bring readers a lot of fun stories with these engaging and unique characters – and I can’t wait for more!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Audiobook edition available via Audible and other digital retailers.

eBook edition is available via Amazon Kindle Unlimited.

Printed edition is also available.