Book Review: Road Trip with a Vampire (My Vampires, #3) by Jenna Levine

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Road Trip with a Vampire
Series: My Vampires, #3
Author: Jenna Levine
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: September 23, 2025
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance/fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

A vampire who can’t remember his past and a witch with secrets of her own hit the road in this zany, cross-country romantic comedy from beloved author Jenna Levine.

Reformed bad witch Grizelda “Zelda” Watson had hoped to never see another vampire again when she slipped away to sunny California for a fresh start. She’d grown tired of them and their nonsense ages ago. But when a vampire with amnesia unexpectedly shows up on her doorstep with a letter from her old friend Reggie, and asks for her help, she can’t say no. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Peter Elliott is tall and gorgeous, looks great in yoga shorts, and has the kind of dark hair and surly expression Zelda’s been a sucker for for hundreds of years.

Peter isn’t completely harmless—he is fanged, after all—but he’s harmless enough, and soon becomes the only person in Zelda’s new life who knows the truth about what she is. If she can help him decipher the cryptic notes in his journal, the only clues to his lost memories, she might as well try before sending him on his way.

But when an alarming message from Peter’s past coincides with a clear sign that Zelda can’t keep running from her own, they embark on a cross-country road trip for answers—only to find what they’re looking for in each other.

Road Trip with a Vampire is the final book in author Jenna Levine’s My Vampires trilogy, and its silly vibe makes this book a fitting wrap-up to a fun, extremely un-serious vampire romance series.

Here, the main character is Zelda, aka Grizelda Watson, aka Grizelda the Terrible — a 400-year-old witch (who appears to be about 30, thanks to witchy immortality) now living in a small Northern California town and running a yoga studio. Zelda’s “terribleness” was less about being scary and more about pulling the craziest pranks she and her vampire buddies could come up with… but after a prank went wrong ten years earlier, she’s left behind her old life and wants nothing more than to enjoy her calm, witch-and-vampire-free life.

All that changes when a gorgeous man shows up at the yoga studio one night. Zelda immediately learns some key facts about him: 1) he’s a vampire; 2) he has amnesia; and 3) he was pushed in her direction by their mutual friend Reggie (the vampire love interest in My Vampire Plus-One, the 2nd book in the series).

Zelda takes pity on Peter and offers him temporary shelter and a job, even though she’d promised herself to keep vampires out of her life. When Peter gets a threatening letter demanding that he show up in Indiana to meet with his employers (whom he doesn’t remember), Zelda decides to go with him on a road trip. They’ll stop at locations mentioned in his journal, the only possession from his former life that he seems to have, to see if anything jogs his memory, and meanwhile, she’ll test the limits and requirements of her magical powers, which have been building up dangerously lately and which she needs to find a way to safely manage.

We both needed to leave town for a while. I had a car, and he needed transportation. And while I could take care of myself if trouble arose while I was away, I couldn’t tear out someone’s throat with my teeth if the occasion called for it. The handy thing about traveling with a vampire was that they could.

What follows is a silly escapade full of strange roadside attractions (singing animatronic chickens are involved), intense sexual attraction, and hints of Peter’s past that may possibly overlap with the history Zelda has tried so hard to leave behind.

The plot of Road Trip with a Vampire is pretty much just what you’d expect — and yes, there are plenty of standard romance tropes, including the ever-popular just-one-room/just-one-bed scenarios.

When Peter’s memories come back and secrets are revealed, there’s both a showdown with bad guys and the obligatory 3rd act breakup — but this is a happy book, so nothing terribly dire actually happens and it all works out in the end. There’s even some goat yoga!

As with the other My Vampires books, the rules are a little loose — which is fine for a book that emphasizes fun over logic. Still, the stickler in me still gets annoyed when a vampire has stubble after a long night and seems to have developed crows-feet. How? Why? Make it make sense!

My other quibble, which has been consistent throughout this trilogy, is that the sex scenes are more explicit than they need to be, and feel jarring in contrast to the otherwise light and breezy tone of the books.

That aside, this book is entertaining and a quick read, and it’s fun to reconnect briefly with characters from the previous books. Road Trip with a Vampire could probably be read as a stand-alone, but I think skipping the earlier books would mean missing out on some of the context and the general “rules” (and I use that term loosely) of the supernatural world of this series.

My recommendation? Start with book #1, My Roommate Is a Vampire, and if you enjoy the campy, silly tone, keep going!

The My Vampires series:

My Roommate Is a Vampire
My Vampire Plus-One
Road Trip with a Vampire

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

6Sep2024

Book Review: My Vampire Plus-One by Jenna Levine

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: My Vampire Plus-One
Author: Jenna Levine
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: September 17, 2024
Length: 400 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance/fantasy
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Nothing sucks more than fake dating a vampire in this paranormal romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of My Roommate Is a Vampire.

Amelia Collins is by definition successful. She would even go so far as to say successfully single. But not according to her family, and she’s tired of the constant questions about her nonexistent dating life. When an invitation to yet another family wedding arrives, she decides to get everyone off her back once and for all by finding someone–anyone–to pose as her date.

After a chance encounter with Reginald Cleaves, Amelia decides he’s perfect for her purposes. He’s a bit strange, but that’s fine; it’ll discourage tough questions from her family. (And it certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s very handsome.) For centuries-old vampire Reggie, posing as her plus-one sounds like the ultimate fun. And if it helps his ruse of pretending to be human, so much the better.

As Amelia and Reggie practice their fauxmance, it becomes clear that Reggie is as loyal to her as the day is long, and that Amelia’s first impressions could not have been more wrong. Suddenly, being in a real relationship with Reggie sounds pretty fang-tastic.

My Vampire Plus-One is the follow-up to last year’s My Roommate Is A Vampire — and if anything, it’s even cuter and sillier than the first book.

In My Vampire Plus-One, Amelia is a successful, hardworking accountant, whose large family seems to constantly have weddings — at which Amelia is on the nonstop receiving end of questions about why she’s single. She’d love to ditch the next wedding, but her parents would be so disappointed!

When Amelia has an unexpected, literal run-in with a good-looking but decidedly weird guy (he runs right into her as she’s leaving her office one day), he definitely leaves an impression, and when she sees him again at a coffee shop, they strike up a conversation. Reginald is a guy who is always up for a good practical joke, and he thinks the idea of posing as Amelia’s special someone at family events sounds hilarious. Also, he finds accountants incredibly hot (or maybe just a certain accountant named Amelia…), so that’s added incentive.

Amelia doesn’t know that Reggie (she refuses to call him Reginald) is a vampire, although she does clue in to the fact that he’s odd right from the start — both because of his interesting approach to style and the fact that he has absolutely no internet presence. But when he tells her straight-up that he’s a vampire during a middle-of-the-night phone call, she assumes it’s yet another of his jokes. A running stream of misunderstandings ensues, as he’s sure she knows something that she doesn’t actually know. You can imagine.

The fake dating trope works in romance because it inevitably leads to real dating, real feelings, real attraction… and yes, it all unfolds that way for Amelia and Reggie. Getting snowed in at an isolated cabin helps move things along — and Reggie listens to and seems to appreciate Amelia, accounting expertise and all, in a way no one else ever has.

“You have an exceptional flair for the dramatic for an accountant.”

“I have a completely average flair for the dramatic for an accountant,” I said, feeling a little unhinged. Talking to this man felt like trying to walk in a straight line on a listing ship. “Which is to say, I don’t have one.”

My Vampire Plus-One is utterly goofy, and that’s really its charm. You cannot for a second take this story seriously, and that’s okay. There’s a storyline that runs throughout about a group of disgruntled (and incompetent) vampires who are out to get Reggie due to a centuries-old grudge, leading to him constantly being on the run — but that’s just all part of the fun. This piece of the story ultimately connects back to Amelia’s work, and there’s an amusing showdown — there’s no real sense of threat or danger, and it’s resolved pretty quickly, but it’s entertaining to see how it all shakes out.

“Do you swear?”

“I swear it on the vows I took when I became a CPA.” There were, of course, no vows you had to take when you became a CPA. But he didn’t need to know that.

The only truly discordant note, from my perspective, is one explicit sex scene that’s way more graphic than it needs to be, and that seems out of place in a novel that’s otherwise full of silly banter and cutesy flirtation. Going a little more closed-door with this scene would have fit the overall tone of the book much better.

That aside, My Vampire Plus-One is goofy and funny, and is a great light read for when you’re in the mood for something fluffy. Reggie first appears in My Roommate is a Vampire as the main love interest’s annoying friend, so it’s fun to see him in a central role here… and having an accountant depicted as the ultimate sexy smart girlfriend is a total win.

22Dec2023

Book Review: My Roommate Is A Vampire by Jenna Levine

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: My Roommate Is A Vampire
Author: Jenna Levine
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: August 29, 2023
Length: 341 pages
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Library
Rating:

True love is at stake in this charming, debut romantic comedy.

Cassie Greenberg loves being an artist, but it’s a tough way to make a living. On the brink of eviction, she’s desperate when she finds a too-good-to-be-true apartment in a beautiful Chicago neighborhood. Cassie knows there has to be a catch—only someone with a secret to hide would rent out a room for that price.

Of course, her new roommate Frederick J. Fitzwilliam is far from normal. He sleeps all day, is out at night on business, and talks like he walked out of a regency romance novel. He also leaves Cassie heart-melting notes around the apartment, cares about her art, and asks about her day. And he doesn’t look half bad shirtless, on the rare occasions they’re both home and awake. But when Cassie finds bags of blood in the fridge that definitely weren’t there earlier, Frederick has to come clean…

Cassie’s sexy new roommate is a vampire. And he has a proposition for her.

In My Roommate Is A Vampire, Cassie’s life is a mess — working low-paying part-time jobs instead of putting her MFA to use as an artist, and living in a terrible apartment that she can’t afford (and is about to get kicked out of). No wonder she’s desperate enough to answer a Craigslist ad that seems sketchy. How can someone possibly be offering a roommate situation in an upscale Chicago neighborhood for only $200 per month?

Despite serious misgivings, she decides to check it out, and discovers a huge luxury apartment with gorgeous views of the lake. Sure, the roommate seems odd, dressed in three-piece suit, referring to her as “Miss Greenberg”, and behaving stiffly formal at all times — but he’s also incredibly attractive, very polite, and very willing to accommodate Cassie’s every need. With nowhere else to live and no obvious reason to say no, Cassie moves in.

Frederick’s weirdness is oddly charming, as he interacts with Cassie mainly through handwritten notes (with gorgeous penmanship, fancy paper, and even wax seals). Still, Cassie just knows there’s something going on with Frederick that’s not normal, starting with when she goes to make herself food and finds that the beautiful kitchen has not a single cooking implement or utensil in it. When she asks Frederick about it, he buys out an entire store’s worth of Le Creuset on her behalf… but still. How was he eating, before Cassie arrived?

As the title of the book makes clear, Frederick is a vampire — hence the empty kitchen, odd behavior, and old-fashioned manners. After a 100-year sleep, Frederick has to learn to cope in the 21st century, and he’s hoping that Cassie will guide him through modern customs, clothing, and daily life. Plus email, internet, and Instagram.

After her initial horror at learning the truth, Cassie ultimately agrees with Frederick’s plan, and soon guides him through buying jeans and henleys (making him look even hotter), ordering complex coffee at pretentious coffee shops, and making small talk at parties. He even watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer with her (which is hilarious, even though he’s shocked by her statement that Giles is the hottest man on the show).

Obviously, there’s a romance brewing, complicated by some silly drama with Frederick’s family and a century-old betrothal. Clearly, from the tone of the book and the cover, this is a happy, upbeat story, so we know that all will end well (and it does).

I liked My Roommate Is A Vampire well enough, although there are some flaws that made me roll my eyes a little too often to consider this a great read. Among my quibbles:

There’s a lot of time spent explaining Cassie’s art, and it sounds awful. (OK, I’m no art expert, so maybe that’s just me…).
Certain plot points never get explained or followed up, especially some elements of Frederick’s history, and also Cassie’s career path.
The sex scenes are unnecessarily explicit. (Again, this maybe has more to do with my reading preferences, but then again, the details seem jarring against the overall light and fluffy tone of the book).
The whole dramatic climax of the book, involving a threat and danger and a big rescue, is utterly bland. Nothing actually happens, and it’s resolved way too easily.
Vampire books need rules! While Frederick explains a few facts of his life to Cassie, pointing out what Buffy gets right, there’s still a lot left unexplained. How does he have sex? Does he breathe or not? Why is he described as having stubble in one scene? Inquiring minds want to know.
Vampires in this book apparently have random magical abilities, and Frederick’s is… well, I’m not going to say, but it’s so oddly random and weird. Maybe it was intended to be funny (and okay, it kind of is), but it’s also something that the story doesn’t need at all, and could have been left out entirely.

I know I’m being picky (perhaps overly picky) about a book that clearly is not intended to be taken seriously in any way. But still, I need my fiction — even my light-hearted, fluffy fiction — to be a little more tied up and have stakes (ha!) that make more sense.

Still, there’s plenty of fun to be had within the pages of My Roommate Is A Vampire. Frederick’s letter, texts, and emails are very funny, and seeing him get past his ideas of propriety and social norms in the 21st century can be a total hoot.

As a silly snack in between some heavier reads, My Roommate Is A Vampire was a fun choice this week.