Published November 2026 via Berkley
★★★★
Stokr is tech's new biggest thing—an app designed to allow vampires and humans to hook up (bump fangs? bump teeth? Warning: I have not workshopped any wordplay that may follow) safely. Sophronia is the mastermind behind it, and she has personal reasons to want it to succeed...but when the app starts going haywire, it becomes apparent that somebody else has reasons to want it to fail.
I read the entire thing in a day while recovering from anesthesia, and I have to say...excellent decision. (Here I should note that I was fully compos mentis and under the influence of a grand total of 400 mg of ibuprofen, but dare I suggest that it would be entertaining to read this when blood-drunk? A-positive choice, we might say?) It's not entirely a light read: Sophronia has some trauma in her past, as does the software engineer who ends up helping her figure out what's going on, and their investigation into what's going on with the app has real and dangerous consequences. But the entire setup is just fun, and the author clearly put a lot of thought into how the vampires of this world work, and what their relationship with humans looks like.
The romance interested me somewhat less, but that's not terribly unusual for me. Sophronia and Casey are both pretty easy to root for, and there's a fun cast of supporting characters—enough to make me wonder whether one of them might take the reins in a second book, as it's clear from the end of this one that although the current hemorrhage has a resolution (i.e., this can be read as a standalone), the bloody good drama isn't over.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
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