This Ravenous Fate Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A Black sapphic vampire mystery set in 1926 Harlem with a premise most readers call irresistible, let down by prose that needed another edit and a setting many say it never fully uses.

Best for: Teen and adult readers who want a slow-burn sapphic YA fantasy driven by a murder investigation and family drama, and who can forgive repetitive phrasing and a slow middle for the concept and the female rage.

Heat level: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5 — glimpses and kisses)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.1/5 — a 3.39 Goodreads average where three stars is the single most common rating and editing is the loudest complaint)

Tropes: Friends-to-enemies-to-lovers, vampire x vampire hunter, slow burn, second chance, forced partnership, murder mystery, reluctant heir, female rage, dual POV.

This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings is the first half of the Ravenous Fate duology, a traditionally published young adult sapphic vampire fantasy from Sourcebooks Fire, set in a 1926 Harlem where once-human vampires called reapers hunt the night — and where Elise Saint, reluctant heir to the family that hunts them, is forced to work with Layla Quinn, the childhood best friend she failed, who is now a reaper accused of murder.

It sits at 3.39 across 4,459 Goodreads ratings, with a Publishers Weekly review and blurbs from Ava Reid and Rachael Lippincott behind it, and three stars is the single most common rating it gets. That is a book readers wanted to love more than they did. Both the wanting and the reasons it falls short are worth understanding before you start.

What Is This Ravenous Fate About?

This Ravenous Fate is a historical paranormal mystery first and a romance second, shelved as young adult and pitched at readers around fourteen and up. The Jazz Age setting means speakeasies, organised crime and Prohibition-era nightlife; the vampire premise means a city with a monster problem and a family that has made a fortune solving it. Dennings has said she moved the book to the Harlem Renaissance after a college class on the period, and the ambition to centre Black and queer characters in that history is the first thing readers name.

Elise Saint has spent years in Paris on her music and comes home to take over a business she never wanted, mainly to spare her younger sister the job. What she lacks is distance from her father, whose control she mistakes for care. Layla Quinn assumes the worst of every Saint, and with reason: the friendship broke when Layla was turned and Elise did not stand by her. The story moves between the two of them in third person, which lets the book show the hunters’ privilege and the hunted girl’s anger from the inside.

What Makes This Sapphic YA Vampire Fantasy Work

The premise: Black sapphic vampires in 1920s Harlem is the hook nearly every review opens with, positive or negative.
Atmosphere for the readers it reaches: Four- and five-star reviewers call the Harlem nightlife immersive, and one calls the atmosphere stunning. StoryGraph readers tag it dark (78%) and mysterious (63%) above anything else.
Female rage: Layla’s anger at the Saints, and at what was done to her, is the thing its biggest fans keep returning to, and it gives the book an edge many YA vampire stories avoid.
The friends-to-enemies setup: For readers who connect, the shared childhood makes this a slow burn with real history behind it rather than a meet-cute, and the monster-and-hunter pairing gets specific praise.
Representation: StoryGraph readers rate the cast as diverse at 95%, and reviewers single out the Black leads and the race-and-class tension inside the Saint family as the book’s most serious material.

Book Synopsis

New York, 1926. Reapers — people turned into blood-hungry monsters by an affliction nobody can cure — are multiplying, and the Saint family has built the most powerful business in Harlem on hunting them. Their reach goes further than the gangsters who run the clubs. Elise Saint was never meant to inherit any of it. She comes back from Paris to take the position anyway, because the alternative is handing it to her little sister.

Layla Quinn lost everything the night she was turned, and she has spent the years since surviving on the city’s edges, carrying a grudge with Elise’s name on it. When a killing is pinned on her, the only way out is a bargain with Elise’s father. She will help the Saints investigate a string of murders tied to whispers of a cure for reapers. The price is working side by side with the girl who abandoned her.

The investigation drags both of them through the speakeasies and back rooms of a city where everyone has a reason to lie, including the people Elise trusts most. Layla wants answers and maybe revenge. Elise wants to prove she is more than her family’s name. What neither of them has settled is what they still feel for each other — or whether the truth about the cure will make that question impossible to answer.

My Review

The idea is the best thing here, and I want to give it full credit before the qualifications start. A family of Black vampire hunters with more power than the mob, a reaper girl who was once their daughter’s best friend, a cure rumour that could upend the whole economy of the city — that is a premise with genuine teeth. Dennings knows where the conflict lives, too: in the gap between what the Saints say they protect and what they actually profit from.

The second real strength is Layla. Her anger is specific and earned, and the readers who love this book love it largely for her. Elise is harder to like by design — she is blind to her father for most of the book, and StoryGraph readers say flaws are a main focus by 73% — but the book does let her be wrong for a long time, which is more honest than redeeming her early.

Where it struggles is line-level craft, and that is not my gripe — it is the single most repeated criticism in the reviews. In a sample of thirty two-star reviews, ten say outright that the book needed more editing, seven flag repeated words and phrases (one reader counts “the Saint heiress” on nearly every page), and five call the dialogue clunky or robotic. One-star reviewers say the same, and eleven of thirty describe giving up partway. Around that sit the structural complaints: a long middle act where the investigation stalls, worldbuilding about the reapers that stays thin or arrives as info-dumps, and a mystery several readers found predictable. At around 460 pages, the slow stretch costs it.

One expectation to reset: the cover, the blurbs and the UK subtitle all sell a decadent vampire romance in the Harlem Renaissance. Readers repeatedly report two gaps. The romance is a slow burn that sits behind the mystery and the father-daughter plot, with kisses and no more. And a loud group of reviewers feel the period is backdrop rather than texture — the Cotton Club and jazz get mentioned, but the Renaissance itself rarely shapes the story. If romance is what drew you, calibrate; if you came for a Black-led paranormal mystery with a love story threaded through it, you are in the right place.

My honest note: A four-star concept delivered in a draft that needed one more pass, held up by Layla and the premise. If repetitive prose pulls you out of a book, this one will. If the idea alone is worth it to you, it is still unlike anything else on the YA shelf.

Element	In This Ravenous Fate
Central relationship	Elise Saint & Layla Quinn — reluctant hunter heir and the reaper she once called her best friend, friends-to-enemies-to-lovers
Core tropes	Slow burn, second chance, vampire x hunter, forced partnership, murder mystery, reluctant heir
Setting	Harlem, New York, 1926 — speakeasies, organised crime and a reaper-hunting dynasty
Heat level	1/5 — glimpses and kisses
Series	Ravenous Fate duology book 1 — open ending; duology complete with Our Vicious Descent (October 2025)
Content notes	Graphic blood, violence and death; racism; emotional abuse by a parent; gun violence; references to slavery and a race massacre; death of a parent; torture; suicidal ideation

How Spicy Is This Ravenous Fate?

A 1/5. Unusually for a YA title, romance.io does have an entry, and it rates the steam “Glimpses and kisses,” its lowest band — moodreads lands in the same place, describing kissing and charged looks with nothing explicit. That matches the publisher’s own pitch at teens, with retailer listings putting it at roughly fourteen and up, and no review I read reports anything beyond kissing. The heat is not why anyone recommends it; the yearning is.

The thing worth flagging is not sexual content but violence. StoryGraph’s crowd-sourced warnings rate blood, violence and death as graphic, and this is a book about monsters who feed. One flag for later: a reviewer of the sequel says a scene in book two gets more explicit than she expected for a teen readership. At the same band, Bite Me and The Dead and the Dark also keep the romance closed-door.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: a Black sapphic vampire story in Jazz Age Harlem is something you have been waiting for, you like your romance as a slow burn under a murder plot, you want a heroine with real anger, and you are happy to read the first half of a two-book story.

You may want to skip it if: repetitive phrasing and stiff dialogue pull you out of a story, you want the romance at the centre rather than the edges, you have little patience for a slow middle act, or you want a historical setting rendered in rich period detail.

In short: a premise worth championing, delivered unevenly enough that more than a third of its raters land on exactly three stars.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is a traditionally published debut with a proper launch behind it — US and UK editions, a deluxe edition, a paperback in 2025 and seventeen editions on StoryGraph — and that launch, not a viral moment, is how readers found it. I found no BookTok surge and no blog or trade conversation beyond the launch window. [Reddit could not be checked for this review.] What it has instead is a large, steady reader base: 4,459 Goodreads ratings at 3.39, 2,693 on StoryGraph at 3.47, and 354 on Amazon at 4.0. Early reviews lean heavily on NetGalley advance copies, but advance readers turn up as often among the two-star reviews as the five-star ones, so the average is not propped up by them. On the trade side, Publishers Weekly praised it as a “well-researched Jazz Age mystery,” and Essence called it intense and gloriously written. Neither mentions editing, which is the thing readers will not stop mentioning.

The audiobook is narrated by Tamika Katon-Donegal for Recorded Books, released alongside the print edition in August 2024 and running about 14 hours 20 minutes. Listener reaction is thin: one four-star reviewer listened mostly on audio and was pleasantly surprised, and one one-star reviewer nearly abandoned the audiobook halfway.

Prefer audio? Listen to This Ravenous Fate on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The premise, first and almost universally — even the harshest reviews open by saying they were desperate for it. Then the atmosphere, for the readers it works on: “immersive” and “stunning” recur in the four- and five-star reviews, and the Harlem nightlife is what they describe. Layla and her anger come next, along with the monster-and-hunter dynamic, which one reader calls exactly how a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers slow burn should be written. The representation gets named again and again. And a minority praise the prose itself as lyrical — notable, because it is the exact opposite of the loudest complaint.

What readers argue about and complain about: Editing, above everything. Readers describe repeated words and phrases, stiff dialogue with few contractions, and a manuscript one reviewer likens to a first draft; several say plainly the fault lies with the editing rather than the author. The setting is the second theme — a loud group feel the Harlem Renaissance is used as a label rather than a world, and one asks whether it is even in the room. Third: pacing. The middle act slows hard, and the one-star reviews are full of DNFs at a quarter to halfway. Beyond that, recurring notes on thin reaper worldbuilding, a predictable mystery, frustration with Elise’s loyalty to an abusive father, and an ending several readers call rushed. The romance divides opinion: slow-burn fans are satisfied, while others say the childhood friendship is never shown, so the reunion has no weight.

The series question everyone should ask first: book one does not resolve. The ending is open and built to carry you into book two; readers call it abrupt rather than a brutal cliffhanger, and the relationship is not settled. The good news is that the duology is finished. Our Vicious Descent came out in October 2025, runs 512 pages and sits at 3.47 across 388 Goodreads ratings — slightly above book one. If you are cliffhanger-averse, you can read both back to back.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does This Ravenous Fate end on a cliffhanger?

Not a hard one, but it does not resolve either. The ending is open and leads straight into book two, and several readers call it abrupt rather than painful.

How spicy is This Ravenous Fate?

A 1/5. romance.io rates it “Glimpses and kisses,” its lowest band, and no review I read reports anything beyond kissing. It is published as young adult.

Is the Ravenous Fate duology finished?

Yes. Book two, Our Vicious Descent, was published in October 2025 and completes the duology. It holds a 3.47 Goodreads average, slightly above book one.

Is This Ravenous Fate young adult?

Yes. It is published by Sourcebooks Fire, a YA imprint, and retailers list it for roughly ages 14 and up. The violence is graphic, but the romance stays at kissing.

Is there an audiobook?

Yes. Tamika Katon-Donegal narrates it for Recorded Books, and it runs about 14 hours 20 minutes. It was released alongside the print edition in August 2024.

If You Loved This Ravenous Fate, Read These Next

If the vampire premise and the YA register are the draw, Bite Me gives you a sapphic teen vampire story with a found family, at the same closed-door heat. If it was the mystery, The Dead and the Dark runs a paranormal investigation and a slow-burn romance between two girls in a small town. And if you want the vampire mythology in a historical setting written for adults, The Brides takes the gothic route with more period weight.

For more like this, browse our YA sapphic fantasy books list, where this book is featured, or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

This Ravenous Fate is a debut whose idea is bigger than its execution. The premise is genuinely fresh, Layla’s anger gives it a pulse, and the Black sapphic vampire mystery it promises is one readers have been asking for. It is also under-edited, slow through the middle, and set in a Harlem Renaissance that too many readers find decorative. Whether that trade works depends on how much repetitive prose costs you — but the reader who comes for the concept, will find a story nobody else is telling. Check This Ravenous Fate on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, This Ravenous Fate ranks as a high-concept traditionally published YA sapphic vampire mystery — fresh and full of rage, held back by editing and pacing, and best approached for the premise and Layla rather than the romance or the period detail.