Thicker Than Water Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Updated on October 8, 2026

Verdict: A short, fast witch-meets-vampire mafia romance with a fun premise, a likeable found family and plenty of heat, held back by thin characterisation and a love story that jumps to “I love you” before it has earned it.

Best for: Kindle Unlimited readers who want a quick paranormal enemies-to-lovers with an ice-queen vampire and a guaranteed happy ending, and who can forgive surface-level characters and stock vampire-and-witch imagery.

Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5 — romance.io: explicit and plentiful)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.5/5 — a 4.03 Goodreads average, but nearly half the most-read written reviews sit at three stars or lower)

Tropes: Enemies to lovers, ice queen, secret identity, vampire mafia, witch and vampire, warring families, found family, dual POV, standalone in a series.

Thicker Than Water is the first book in Remi Lebeau’s self-published Fangs and Feuds series, a 224-page paranormal sapphic romance set in a city whose nightlife belongs to a vampire crime family, in which a witch sent undercover behind that family’s bar falls for the cold, ambitious vampire heir she is supposed to be watching.

On Goodreads it holds a 4.03 average across 363 ratings, with 29 written reviews behind that number — enough to see a pattern, not enough to call it settled. Seventy percent of those ratings are four or five stars, yet the written reviews tilt much harder toward three, and the same two complaints keep coming back. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.

What Is Thicker Than Water About?

This is paranormal romance with a crime-family frame rather than a dark romance in the captive-and-captor sense. The vampires run a nightclub and an underworld, the witches live in a coven with its own hierarchy, and the two groups have a long feud. That setup gives the book its stakes — divided loyalties, family pressure, a rival boss — but it is played for momentum and banter more than menace. The publisher’s own content note lists sexual content, violence and adult themes, and nothing in the reader reviews suggests anything harsher.

Amara Moonfall is a witch with a comfortable life and very little interest in danger, which is exactly why being sent into a vampire-run club rattles her. Celine Côté is the eldest child of the most powerful vampire in the city, cool and controlled, determined to prove she can lead. The book alternates between them in first person, so the reader sees both the witch’s fear and the vampire’s slow thaw from the inside.

What Makes This Sapphic Vampire Mafia Romance Work

The pairing itself: Witch and vampire is the hook reviewers name most often as the reason they picked the book up, and the warring-families angle gives it a ready-made Romeo-and-Juliet tension.
The Côté sisters: Celine’s siblings win readers over. One reader says the sisters are the family Amara needed and plans to read on because of them — handy, because the sequels follow them.
The ice-queen thaw: Celine starts guarded and ends devoted. One reviewer notes she is the character who actually grows in the second half, and the enemies-to-lovers turn rests on her.
The heat: romance.io files it in its top steam band, and reader reviews describe the spice as a draw rather than an interruption; one counts four explicit scenes.
A guaranteed ending: A reader review confirms a happy ending for Amara and Celine, and the publisher says the book can be read as a standalone, so there is no cliffhanger to wait out.

Book Synopsis

Amara Moonfall’s coven is under threat, and the answer, as far as the coven is concerned, lies inside the Côté family’s nightclub. Amara, whose life until now has been small and safe, is the one who has to go. Her cover is a bartending job. Her assignment is to get close to the most notorious vampire family in the city without letting anyone realise what she is.

Celine Côté runs the club and much of what happens behind it. She is the eldest progeny of the most powerful vampire in the city, and she is eager to prove herself against a rival vampire boss. She has no time for distractions, and a new face behind her bar should be the least of her concerns. It is not.

As Celine goes head to head with her rival, the club becomes a place where Amara’s two lives collide: the coven that sent her and the vampire she is falling for. Every secret Amara keeps makes the relationship more dangerous, and Celine’s war puts everyone she cares about at risk. Somewhere behind the feud sits a bigger threat neither of them sees coming. The question the book keeps open is not whether these two want each other — that is settled early — but whose side each will choose when loyalty to family and loyalty to love stop pointing the same way.

My Review

The concept is the best thing here, and it is a good one. Witch-and-vampire is a pairing sapphic fiction does not do often enough, and putting it inside a crime family with a feud gives the romance a built-in reason to be secret and risky. Readers who came for that premise mostly got what they wanted: the setup is clear, the pace is quick at 224 pages, and the book never pretends to be anything heavier than it is.

The second strength is the family around Celine. The Côté sisters give the book its warmth, and they do something the leads struggle to do: they feel like people with histories. The reader who singled them out is continuing the series for them, and it makes sense that the next two books do follow them. Celine herself gets real development in the back half, as the ice-queen front cracks under the pressure of the feud.

Where it struggles is depth, and this is not my personal gripe — it is the most repeated criticism in the written reviews. Several readers say the characters, leads included, never go beyond a few defining facts. The second complaint follows from the first: the romance moves through hookups and dates without visible build-up, and then the declarations arrive suddenly, so one reader felt chapters had been skipped and another described being hit in the face by the “I love you”s. Behind those two sit smaller notes — a slow, repetitive opening, prose that one reader found heavy on exclamation marks, and stock imagery (brooms, coffins) that one reviewer found cheesy rather than fresh.

Reset one expectation before you start. The packaging says “vampire mafia,” and at least one reader says the mafia side felt light; the crime family is the setting, not the engine. If you want a ruthless underworld romance in the darkest sense, calibrate. If “mafia” is the word that worried you, relax — this is a paranormal romance with a feud and a nightclub, and it is gentler than the label suggests.

My honest note: A fun premise and a likeable family carried by heat, held back by characters and a romance that skip the slow part. If you want depth and a long burn, look elsewhere; if you want a quick, spicy witch-and-vampire read with a guaranteed happy ending, it delivers.

Element	In Thicker Than Water
Central relationship	Amara Moonfall & Celine Côté — an undercover witch and the heir of the city’s most powerful vampire family
Core tropes	Enemies to lovers, ice queen, secret identity, witch and vampire, warring families, found family
Setting	A city whose nightclubs and underworld belong to a vampire crime family, with a witch coven on the other side of a feud
Heat level	5/5 — explicit and plentiful (romance.io, 9 ratings)
Series	Fangs and Feuds book 1 — HEA, readable as a standalone; sequels follow Celine’s sisters
Content notes	Explicit sexual content, violence and adult themes (publisher’s note), family feuds and loved ones put in danger

How Spicy Is Thicker Than Water?

romance.io places it at 5/5 — “explicit and plentiful,” its top band — although that rests on only nine ratings there. Reader reviews back up the open-door part: one counts four explicit scenes, others call it a spicy read, and the publisher’s own note warns of sexual content. The heat is part of the pull rather than an interruption, and in a book of 224 pages four scenes take up a real share of the page count.

One caveat on that number: a single reviewer describes the book as “a bit of steam,” so not everyone experienced it as relentless. No reviewer flags anything that pushes into darker kink or consent territory. For the same top band with a mafia boss and much darker material, see our Merciless Queen review; for another indie sapphic vampire romance one notch cooler, see Fanged Secrets.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want a witch-and-vampire pairing, you enjoy an ice-queen heroine who melts for one person, you like found family and sibling banter, and you want a quick explicit read with a happy ending on Kindle Unlimited.

You may want to skip it if: you need deep characterisation, you want a slow burn with visible yearning, you are tired of familiar vampire-and-witch imagery, or you came specifically for a gritty crime plot.

In short: a fun, spicy weekend read that trades depth for speed.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is a quiet book with steady numbers. I found no trade reviews and no blog reviews in a web search — the only outside mentions are listings in sapphic book databases and a Goodreads recommendations thread. What it has instead is Kindle Unlimited: 363 Goodreads ratings and 351 Amazon ratings at a 4.5 average, where 62% are five stars and just 3% are below three. That steady stream of KU readers is how the book is being found. A second channel opened on June 5, 2026, when Lebeau released a self-narrated audiobook (8 hours 21 minutes). Reaction to the narration is the one place readers are blunt: one reviewer says it lacks distinct voices for the characters, and another says they could barely get through it.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The premise comes first — readers keep naming witch-and-vampire and “enemies to lovers” as what pulled them in, and one says it scratched an itch for vampire romance they could not find elsewhere. Celine’s family comes up next; one reader liked the sisters more than the plot and says the characters are what keep you going. Third is the heat, and fourth the ending, which one reader describes as a happy ending the pair had to fight for. A smaller group says the book took a while to grab them and then won them over once the leads finally noticed each other.

What readers argue about and complain about: Thin characters, above everything. Among the top 30 written reviews on Goodreads, 14 sit at three stars or lower, and the most common reason is that the leads never get beyond a few defining facts. The romance is the second theme: hookups and dates stand in for build-up, then love declarations arrive suddenly, and at least two readers say they never felt the chemistry. Third, pacing: a slow, samey opening for some readers and a rushed ending for one who wanted the story to have more room to grow. Smaller notes sit underneath — familiar vampire-and-witch imagery read as cheesy, a writing style one reader found too exclamatory, and a “mafia” element that felt lighter than the cover promised. The genuine split is the opening: one reader found it dragged and the book never really moved, while another who found Celine and her sister juvenile at first says it then won them over completely.

The series question everyone should ask first: This one resolves. A reader review confirms the happy ending, no reviewer mentions a cliffhanger, and the publisher says it can be read on its own. Sweeter Than Honey (4.31 across 228 ratings) and Smoother Than Silk (4.34 across 200) follow Celine’s sisters, and both rate higher than this opener, so readers who like the world tend to like it more as it goes. Amazon and romance.io list a fourth book, Blood as Sweet as Roses, which one reader read first and describes as a spin-off. The series also shares a world and many characters with the Covens and Clans series, and the publisher warns it includes spoilers for them, so if you plan to read both, start with Covens and Clans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Thicker Than Water a standalone?

Yes, effectively. It is book one of Fangs and Feuds, but the publisher says it can be read on its own and the central couple get their ending here. The sequels follow Celine’s sisters.

Does Thicker Than Water have a happy ending?

Yes. Reader reviews describe a happy ending for Amara and Celine, and none mentions a cliffhanger. One reviewer describes it as a happy ending the pair had to fight for.

How spicy is Thicker Than Water?

A 5/5. romance.io lists it as explicit and plentiful, though from only nine ratings, and one reader counts four explicit scenes in a 224-page book.

Is Thicker Than Water a dark mafia romance?

Not really. The vampire crime family is the setting and the source of the feud, but readers describe a fun, fast paranormal romance, and at least one says the mafia side felt light.

Is there a Thicker Than Water audiobook?

Yes. Remi Lebeau narrates it; it runs 8 hours 21 minutes and came out on June 5, 2026. Two reviewers were unhappy with the narration, so sample it first.

Do I need to read Covens and Clans first?

No, but it helps. Fangs and Feuds shares a world and many characters with Covens and Clans, and the publisher warns it contains spoilers for that series.

If You Loved Thicker Than Water, Read These Next

If the female crime boss was the draw and you want her far more ruthless, Merciless Queen is the same top heat band with a genuinely dark mafia plot. For another indie sapphic vampire romance with a similar reader count and a slightly warmer reception, try Fanged Secrets. And if what you missed was depth, A Dowry of Blood gives you vampires with real interiority and far less heat. For more, browse our sapphic vampire romance guide, our sapphic witch romance list, the lesbian mafia romance hub, or every title in Book Reviews.

The Bottom Line

Thicker Than Water wants to be a fast, sexy feud romance between a witch and a vampire, and on that level it works: the premise is fun, the Côté sisters are good company, and the heat is high. What it does not do is go deep — the characters stay thin, the romance skips the build-up, and the mafia side is mostly set dressing. It is worth it for KU readers who want a quick witch-and-vampire romance with a happy ending, and less so for anyone who needs a slow burn to believe the love story. Check Thicker Than Water on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Thicker Than Water ranks as a light, high-heat indie paranormal romance — a fun premise and a warm found family, held back by thin characters and a rushed love story, and best approached for the witch-and-vampire chemistry and the sisters rather than the mafia plot.