I have a problem when I scroll through Instagram; apparently the algorithm is dead-set on adding posts to my feed that are book recommendations, specifically mafia, hockey ,and paranormal-centered romances. Naturally when I come across one that looks interesting, I save it, but I was going through my saved posts the other weekend and realized I have too many and I need to stop saving every single book that looks interesting.
But outside of making my TBR list bigger — because why not? — this process has also had an unintended side effect: I have found, started, liked, and DNF’d a vampire romance series — all in the span of less than a full weekend. Allow me to explain.
It’s Not You (Vampires), It’s Me (Reading Tastes)
House of Durand by Erin Bedford is a reverse harem vampire/paranormal romance series that I first came across on Instagram. There are ten books total in the series thus far (I believe), with the first one being published in 2018. The story, which starts with Indebted to the Vampires, follows our heroine, Piper, who is down on her luck and is sent via a temp agency to be a live-in maid for the namesake House of Durant and its six male inhabitants. As the name of the debut suggests, Piper comes to find out all six men are vampires, all of whom are quickly growing emotionally attached to her, which leads to various trials and tribulations as a human interacting with a paranormal world.
As of writing this, I have only read the first two books in the series — the aforementioned debut and the direct sequel, Wanted by the Vampires. I don’t read reverse harem stories often, I think this is technically my first one(s), but I genuinely appreciate the way the relationships are developed by the author. Bedford does a good job of giving time to each suitor and how they interact with Piper, giving them personality and making each relationship with her an actual thing. I was fully expecting these books to be far more spicy than they were (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and found that they don’t go right for the smut — which strikes me as pleasantly unusual considering the “Why Choose” premise.
Reading the first two books, I found myself getting invested in the characters, in Piper’s journey, and in the overall story. I appreciate the longing, the implied danger, the near-kisses, and other more romantic aspects of this paranormal story. However, despite having a good time with these books — I finished them in one weekend — I don’t think I can bring myself to read any more.
Indebted to the Vampires, according to GoodReads anyway, started as a novella and was expanded into a full-fledged novel. If this is correct, then that makes a lot of sense and is a very good encapsulation of my main issue with the series. When I saw there were so many books in this series, I was surprised, and quickly became less so when I realized each installment feels very episodic and very much like extended novellas.
For context, I listened to these via audiobook, so I don’t know how long they actually are page-wise. However, the audiobooks are only about 6 hours long at 1x speed, and I typically listen at 1.5x or 1.2x speed. The first two books feel as though they could’ve been combined into one; separately, they feel too incomplete and more like episodes of a TV series as opposed to full novels. I personally need more to happen in each of these in order to keep me invested in what’s happening and where this story is taking me. While I can enjoy the characters and the dynamics and all of that just fine, the plot needs to frankly get a move on. Perhaps these stories are meant to be episodic and meant to be little installments that will eventually lead to a climax; if that is the author’s intent, there’s nothing wrong with that. But for my personal tastes, I don’t think I can follow these breadcrumbs for 8+ books when the series could be condensed to half that length.
The books were a good time, I’m glad I read them, but I’m not going to prioritize finishing this series when I have a massive TBR to work on — and if the plot is going to keep being as slow as molasses.
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