Crave

Introduction 

Crave was written by Tracy Wolff and published on April 7th, 2020, by Entangled Publishing company. This was yet another recommendation from a friend and was meant to be a birthday release, but here we are. I started this series in mid-June and finished all of them in a two week span, and since then, I’ve been wanting to read them again. I would recommend these books to people who enjoy modern paranormal fantasy romance; this series began similar to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight with more comedy me grew into its own story from there. As with all of my big series reviews, the Spoiler-Free Thoughts section will be safe for those who haven’t read this book yet to get a general overview of my opinions. The Thoughts section will be more specific to this book (no future installments) and open for discussion in my comments and DMs.

If you want to keep up with Tracy Wolff and the rest of her work, visit her website https://tracywolffauthor.com and follow her on Instagram @tracywolffbooks.

Plot

Following the deaths of her parents, Grace is forced to move in with her uncle and attend his school, Katmere Academy. She quickly discovers that everything isn’t quite as it seems, and the castle has many secrets buried within.

Spoiler-Free Thoughts

My first impression of this book was that it was basic. An ordinary girl suffers a personal tragedy that forces her to move somewhere vaguely mysterious and completely out of her comfort zone. While there, she meets an unattainably attractive and painfully secretive boy that she swears she won’t fall for because how cliche is that? (A sentiment which in itself is a cliche). To Wolff’s credit, that plot line is one of my favorites, and the setting of a castle turned school was cool and reminiscent of Harry Potter. Not only was it interesting, it was - of course - dangerous, though Grace and the rest of us didn’t really know why until later.

Jaxon was dark and intriguing, and I suspected his past might be even darker than hers. Beyond that though, he seemed hesitant to let Grace walk into danger, and it made me wonder why he cared at all, especially given his reputation. Alternatively, Grace was just a funny protagonist, and while I’m sure most of it was intentional, some of it came from the fact that her dialogue - both internal and external - felt exactly like what an 18-year-old in her situation would think or say. It was a casual and easy read, even when the characters and interactions were more complicated.

Something I didn’t love about the story telling though was how repetitive it felt - not the plot, but the language used. A lot of phrases felt overused, which can be overlooked relatively easily, but it was noticeable. As far as the ending goes, I feel like I had a rough idea of what would happen, but I was not expecting how Wolff got us there, which was very interesting, and the bonus chapters after the end had me itching to get my hands on the next installment.

While I wrote this review from the perspective of someone who hasn’t already finished the series, I want to rate it against the rest of the books. It’s a solid start to the series, and it isn’t my least favorite, but I do think several future installments are better. With that in mind, I rate this a 7.5/10

Thoughts

One of my first thoughts about Katmere was whether there were other creatures there, or if it was just vampires. Aside from that, I wondered what the rules were for this world Grace was thrown into. The next thing was that there were no humans there, and I thought she was something, but I couldn’t figure out what - though looking back, there were clues hidden throughout the book that I didn’t catch at the time.

This book is not subtle in the slightest, but I feel like that was the best way to tell this story, at least for this first installment. After Twilight, a paranormal romance like this could easily turn predictable or repetitive, especially because the back cover tells us that Jaxon is a vampire. Making it obvious to us and not so clear to Grace made the book funnier, especially in its willingness to be self-aware. I was into it because it was so hysterical that I was laughing every time Grace didn’t catch on, which helped pass the time while I waited for her to connect the dots. The style had me wary at first, but I really ended up enjoying it. The plot was definitely helped by being told from only Grace’s perspective because for the most part, we knew what she knew, which helped keep up the intrigue even when the “big twist” was already pretty clear.

Something I didn’t expect was the nature of Jaxon’s backstory. I didn’t know he killed his brother, but more than that, I hadn’t expected his conviction to be as strong as it was. Not only did he kill Hudson, but he was very clear that he would do it again if presented with the same opportunity. Unfortunately, I felt like the plot twist of Flint working with Lia and her being the one to cause the deaths of Grace’s parents on Hudson’s behalf was somewhat predictable as the story continued, but I didn’t expect Grace to be used as a sacrifice. I also was expecting Hudson to come back, but I did not realize how that would happen or that it would cause Grace’s reveal as a gargoyle. Regardless, I really enjoyed the ending, especially when we got to reread some chapters from Jaxon’s perspective after the ending to realize that he and Grace are in fact mates, and he has known from the beginning.