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Fawn's Blood
Vampires, vampire slayers, and a bloodthirsty underground resistance converge in a campy YA fantasy about being a queer teen in a world that wishes they did not exist.
Kids’ librarian and critically acclaimed author of Out of Salem puts a pulpy spin on vampire fiction, and bites back at anti-trans moral panic.
Fawn and Silver share nearly coming out together as trans in their small Maryland town, clocking a copious number of hours in detention, and spending their sleepovers secretly making out. They’re also uniquely obsessed with vampires, who are being hunted, imprisoned, and executed for the danger they allegedly pose to human life.
Rachel is a bisexual teen, who has secretly been turned vampire and who is contending with the fact that her mom is a notorious vampire slayer. When Silver disappears and Fawn goes west in search of him, her and Rachel’s fates converge, both falling into the hands of Cain, an edgelord vampire known for his proselytizing for the drinking of human blood.
But in discovering hidden tunnels and secret bars, youth shelters and punk shows and safe houses, Fawn find herself in the middle of a vampire underground in Seattle—an organized resistance keeping each other alive through a network of blood distribution and protection from slayers.
Fawn’s Blood is a timely antidote to the anti-trans moral panic of today. Taking the queer-coded villain and flipping it on its’ head, this multi-voiced vampire novel offers a paranormal YA fantasy full of complicated queer characters—human and monster alike—all of whom are simply trying to survive in a world that wants them dead.
Kids’ librarian and critically acclaimed author of Out of Salem puts a pulpy spin on vampire fiction, and bites back at anti-trans moral panic.
Fawn and Silver share nearly coming out together as trans in their small Maryland town, clocking a copious number of hours in detention, and spending their sleepovers secretly making out. They’re also uniquely obsessed with vampires, who are being hunted, imprisoned, and executed for the danger they allegedly pose to human life.
Rachel is a bisexual teen, who has secretly been turned vampire and who is contending with the fact that her mom is a notorious vampire slayer. When Silver disappears and Fawn goes west in search of him, her and Rachel’s fates converge, both falling into the hands of Cain, an edgelord vampire known for his proselytizing for the drinking of human blood.
But in discovering hidden tunnels and secret bars, youth shelters and punk shows and safe houses, Fawn find herself in the middle of a vampire underground in Seattle—an organized resistance keeping each other alive through a network of blood distribution and protection from slayers.
Fawn’s Blood is a timely antidote to the anti-trans moral panic of today. Taking the queer-coded villain and flipping it on its’ head, this multi-voiced vampire novel offers a paranormal YA fantasy full of complicated queer characters—human and monster alike—all of whom are simply trying to survive in a world that wants them dead.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 16, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 25, 2025
Fawn and Silver, trans teenagers from Maryland, are obsessed with vampires- who really exist, in a legal gray area, sometimes registered with the government and applying for services, other times hunted and killed by vigilante groups. When Silver disappears, and his family says he died, Fawn is convinced that actually he ran away to a vampire hideout in Seattle. Meanwhile in Seattle, bisexual Rachel works with her mother in a vampire slayer girl gang- which becomes very fraught when she is turned and has to face life from the other side of stake. The stories of these three teenagers converge around the vampire Cain, an edgelord who refuses to follow the ancient magic guidelines that vampires established in past centuries. Vampire stories are always gay but rarely are they so trans. Schrieve's tale of teen rebellion, friendship, and bloodsucking is ripe with hope for a better world- a world in which networks of mutual aid relationships support outsider communities, and people give and receive trust, pleasure, and magic outside of heterosexuality and government control. Buffy fans, this book will knock your socks off!
June 1, 2025
Fawn's Blood is a young adult vampire novel about queer teenagers, vampire and human, who must fight to find ways to survive in a world that doesn't want them to. Rachel is a queer teen with a vampire slayer mother, but when Rachel is turned into a vampire, she's caught between worlds. Fawn is a trans girl looking for her best friend Silver, who appears to have faked his death to become a vampire, but hitchhiking across the country to find him leaves her in the same place as Rachel: Seattle, where a battle between vampires and vampire slayers isn't as simple as that. As arguments about how vampires should or shouldn't access blood divide both vampires and humans, Fawn and Rachel have to discover that knowing who to trust isn't easy, whether that's through queer or vampire community.
I've really enjoyed Schrieve's previous books and how both novels make YA feel like a space for complexity in the relationships between teens, between teens and adults, and in queer community, and Fawn's Blood continues this whilst also updating the YA vampire novel for our current moment, particularly around anti-trans sentiment and ideas of infection and corruption. The world of the novel feels biting (pun intended), working both as an allegory and as a literal monster story (as vampire stories should), and also exposing how much of vampire fiction focuses on individuals rather than the collective, and how this isn't necessarily healthy for the vampire characters to see themselves as archaic loners in a world that doesn't want them to exist. At the same time, there's the humans who support vampires, and I love how Schrieve makes the vampire girl cis (as far as we see) and the supportive human girl trans, to really play with these ideas of allies and what allyship meas.
Fawn's Blood reminds me of the thrill of reading Darren Shan's vampire books as an eleven-year-old crossed with my love of what queer horror can say about the world. The characters feel complex and real and the world suitably messy (despite the very different subject matter and levels of dark stuff, the world of the vampires does make me think of Lost Souls in some ways). As a queer, trans adult who has loved vampire media since reading Darren Shan's YA vampire series as a pre-teen, Fawn's Blood is certainly the kind of book I needed back then, and which is even more necessary now given its real life resonances.
I've really enjoyed Schrieve's previous books and how both novels make YA feel like a space for complexity in the relationships between teens, between teens and adults, and in queer community, and Fawn's Blood continues this whilst also updating the YA vampire novel for our current moment, particularly around anti-trans sentiment and ideas of infection and corruption. The world of the novel feels biting (pun intended), working both as an allegory and as a literal monster story (as vampire stories should), and also exposing how much of vampire fiction focuses on individuals rather than the collective, and how this isn't necessarily healthy for the vampire characters to see themselves as archaic loners in a world that doesn't want them to exist. At the same time, there's the humans who support vampires, and I love how Schrieve makes the vampire girl cis (as far as we see) and the supportive human girl trans, to really play with these ideas of allies and what allyship meas.
Fawn's Blood reminds me of the thrill of reading Darren Shan's vampire books as an eleven-year-old crossed with my love of what queer horror can say about the world. The characters feel complex and real and the world suitably messy (despite the very different subject matter and levels of dark stuff, the world of the vampires does make me think of Lost Souls in some ways). As a queer, trans adult who has loved vampire media since reading Darren Shan's YA vampire series as a pre-teen, Fawn's Blood is certainly the kind of book I needed back then, and which is even more necessary now given its real life resonances.
March 9, 2025
I am such a terrible reviewer but wanted to make sure I said something about this story that I received recently as it really deserves notice. The two points of view in this book were a wild ride, they left me in awe of the inside and outside perspectives of this vampire world. What if vampires really could treat HIV and Covid with their bites? Would that be celebrated or would it be criminalized in favor of health companies making money? I very much enjoyed this trip across the country and through the subterranean world of Seattle. The anarchistic vibes and vivid world building really drew me in and kept me turning pages. I agree that I can see the parallels to my own vampire free (probably) world and I can only hope that this is not the only time I meet Fawn and Rachel, I don’t think they are quite done with me yet.
January 19, 2026
Fawn’s Blood is a rowdy, heart-filled queer vampy romp. It has so many elements of my favorite young adult adventures, but mixed in was also a variety of sharp social commentary, the importance of intergenerational trust & mutual aid, and an authentic way of honoring that strange boundary that teenagers straddle as they sort through their messiest emotions.
In a world where vampires are public knowledge and new moral battles are fought over their existence every day, we’re following two wildly different young adults. Fawn is a trans teenager from a small town, and she and the trans boy she loves, Silver, have always been obsessed with vampires. When Silver allegedly dies by suicide, Fawn is convinced he’s finally been turned by their new-age vampire Tumblr mutual Cain, and she follows his trail across the country.
Meanwhile, Rachel is the perfect daughter to her vampire slayer mom - that is, until Cain turns her against her will. Suddenly her life is upside down, and the vigilante group (and her girlfriend within it) that was once her entire community and life no longer trusts her. She’s forced to prove herself safe to not be killed, kidnapped, or experimented on. But it’s impossible to have a foot in both worlds.
Fawn and Rachel’s storylines slowly converge, and as vampire resistances, intense leaders, and slayer teams come head to head, things get complicated pretty quickly.
I thought both narrators were compelling and had great arcs. Rachel is very challenging to root for at first because she does harbor so much hate and you just want her to wake up, but Fawn is also incredibly naive. They both had so much to learn and unlearn, and their coming-of-age journeys left off open-ended, but sweetly. I liked that in the end, they both became more confident about their worth and who they might want to spend their time with.
This isn’t the first queer vampiric story I’ve read that shapes vampires as beings who transcend bodies & boundaries & societal expectations, but I love the way it’s explored here. I love vampires as ever-shifting beings, and I love the freedom that both vampires and their human partners find in that. It’s an optimistic, symbiotic take on humanity.
I also like the way this story pushes back against the messiness of vampire media in which we’re meant to cheer when they die but we also see them in their human complexity. And that it doesn’t hesitate to call out weird age gaps in vampire media, too.
And, moving beyond the vampires themselves, the social commentary as a whole was sharp. This asks a lot of thoughtful questions around medical crises & how we treat anyone who is disabled, the path from shame to acceptance you might have around your identity, and the best ways to craft and keep communities. And it’s an act of rebellion against anti-trans moral panic.
These kids - and every character, of course - yearn for home and community in a world that thrives on separation and “othering” and pitting factions of people against each other. There’s so much wonderful mutual aid here (and positive community ideals that are working towards real support systems)!
I really appreciate how much gentle weight is placed on teenage feelings and complexity and how young people are still PEOPLE. Yes, sometimes things get messy, but these kids are all given agency and respect as they sort through the emotions and figure out what kind of adults they’ll become.
Something I adored was the importance of community between generations and having mentors and elders, especially when your own parents fail you. These relationships were such a beautiful and intentional portrayal in a book about queer and trans people, who are too often villainized as predators or perverts. There are so many gentle, warm, and honest conversations between teenagers and adults - and there are predators in this story, but also so many who remember what it was like to be young and in pain and are trying to build better scaffolds and support systems for kids who have nothing like they once did. Kids often have more fluid viewpoints, and adults can look to them as vehicles for seeing better futures when their fellow adults prefer sorting things into good and evil and black and white.
This is going to be a wonderful book for young readers, and I thoroughly enjoyed it as an adult. More queer freedom explored through monstrosity and shapeshifting, always, please! It’s an act of perfect defiance.
CW: murder, death, blood, body horror, violence, queerphobia, transphobia, medical trauma, kidnapping, adult/child relationship, gaslighting, bullying
Follow me on social media for book recommendations!
(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
In a world where vampires are public knowledge and new moral battles are fought over their existence every day, we’re following two wildly different young adults. Fawn is a trans teenager from a small town, and she and the trans boy she loves, Silver, have always been obsessed with vampires. When Silver allegedly dies by suicide, Fawn is convinced he’s finally been turned by their new-age vampire Tumblr mutual Cain, and she follows his trail across the country.
Meanwhile, Rachel is the perfect daughter to her vampire slayer mom - that is, until Cain turns her against her will. Suddenly her life is upside down, and the vigilante group (and her girlfriend within it) that was once her entire community and life no longer trusts her. She’s forced to prove herself safe to not be killed, kidnapped, or experimented on. But it’s impossible to have a foot in both worlds.
Fawn and Rachel’s storylines slowly converge, and as vampire resistances, intense leaders, and slayer teams come head to head, things get complicated pretty quickly.
I thought both narrators were compelling and had great arcs. Rachel is very challenging to root for at first because she does harbor so much hate and you just want her to wake up, but Fawn is also incredibly naive. They both had so much to learn and unlearn, and their coming-of-age journeys left off open-ended, but sweetly. I liked that in the end, they both became more confident about their worth and who they might want to spend their time with.
This isn’t the first queer vampiric story I’ve read that shapes vampires as beings who transcend bodies & boundaries & societal expectations, but I love the way it’s explored here. I love vampires as ever-shifting beings, and I love the freedom that both vampires and their human partners find in that. It’s an optimistic, symbiotic take on humanity.
I also like the way this story pushes back against the messiness of vampire media in which we’re meant to cheer when they die but we also see them in their human complexity. And that it doesn’t hesitate to call out weird age gaps in vampire media, too.
And, moving beyond the vampires themselves, the social commentary as a whole was sharp. This asks a lot of thoughtful questions around medical crises & how we treat anyone who is disabled, the path from shame to acceptance you might have around your identity, and the best ways to craft and keep communities. And it’s an act of rebellion against anti-trans moral panic.
These kids - and every character, of course - yearn for home and community in a world that thrives on separation and “othering” and pitting factions of people against each other. There’s so much wonderful mutual aid here (and positive community ideals that are working towards real support systems)!
I really appreciate how much gentle weight is placed on teenage feelings and complexity and how young people are still PEOPLE. Yes, sometimes things get messy, but these kids are all given agency and respect as they sort through the emotions and figure out what kind of adults they’ll become.
Something I adored was the importance of community between generations and having mentors and elders, especially when your own parents fail you. These relationships were such a beautiful and intentional portrayal in a book about queer and trans people, who are too often villainized as predators or perverts. There are so many gentle, warm, and honest conversations between teenagers and adults - and there are predators in this story, but also so many who remember what it was like to be young and in pain and are trying to build better scaffolds and support systems for kids who have nothing like they once did. Kids often have more fluid viewpoints, and adults can look to them as vehicles for seeing better futures when their fellow adults prefer sorting things into good and evil and black and white.
This is going to be a wonderful book for young readers, and I thoroughly enjoyed it as an adult. More queer freedom explored through monstrosity and shapeshifting, always, please! It’s an act of perfect defiance.
CW: murder, death, blood, body horror, violence, queerphobia, transphobia, medical trauma, kidnapping, adult/child relationship, gaslighting, bullying
Follow me on social media for book recommendations!
(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
November 3, 2025
Fawn's Blood delivers several classic, exciting thrills from vampire lore and literature (blood drinking, undead-ness, a social underworld to explore, monstrosity) while subverting a lot of assumptions about vampires and associated tropes in exciting and juicy ways.
Fawn, a trans teen girl from suburban Maryland (shout-out from a Frederick County native) runs away to Seattle in pursuit of her best friend who has faked his death in pursuit of immortality, a thirst for blood, and a sense of meaning and belonging that can be found in the community of zealous young vampires centered around a charismatic leader (this is a questionable assumption, as we find out). Meanwhile Rachel, the teenage daughter of a career girlboss-dropshipper meets-Moms-For-Liberty vampire slayer, has just been turned into a vampire by this same charismatic leader, who's her mom's longstanding nemesis. As both Fawn and Rachel cope with the ways their lives have changed and explore the new social worlds they're thrust into, we meet a wide array of ensemble characters who bring heart, humor, and make the world feel real.
Of course, Fawn and Rachel's paths cross, and this book offers plenty of gripping moments of action, excitement, and suspense mixed in with tender and thoughtful character development scenes. Schrieve is asking several ~important~ and juicy questions, such as:
- Must all vampires who drink human blood feel tortured and ashamed about it? In a real world with vampires and humans, what kinds of consensual and mutually-satisfying blood-drinking arrangements would naturally arise?
- In vampire media like Buffy, Buffy and co. relentlessly murder vampires on sight after it's repeatedly established that they have personalities, consciousness, and agency like living humans. What does this violence say about the slayers and the world they're living in, and how would vampires react to it if Joss Whedon wasn't the one writing?
- What does vampire-slaying do to a person? What is it like to have a vampire slayer as a mom? (spoiler: not fabulous)
This book is written for teens, and I would absolutely recommend it to young readers, many of whom will really enjoy the realistic portrayals of the complexity of teen social life and agency in a world where they have some power but are also disenfranchised. I would also recommend this book to adults looking for queer, trans, and/or vampire-focused content. The complexity of Schrieve's characters, hir respect for the inner worlds of people of all ages, and the questions xie asks about the world of the story make this a satisfying book for teen and adults alike. I want to give a special shoutout for the real, raw, and loving ways xie writes about the exhilarations and pitfalls of connections between queer young people and queer adults in a world where any kind of intergenerational contact between queer people is increasingly demonized but so important for building a sense of belonging, community, and power.
This book is fun! I highly recommend it! There are a lot of characters, which creates a really rich world but can occasionally be confusing if one is reading quickly, so be prepared to maybe jot down a few names in your notes app (it's worth it!!)
Fawn, a trans teen girl from suburban Maryland (shout-out from a Frederick County native) runs away to Seattle in pursuit of her best friend who has faked his death in pursuit of immortality, a thirst for blood, and a sense of meaning and belonging that can be found in the community of zealous young vampires centered around a charismatic leader (this is a questionable assumption, as we find out). Meanwhile Rachel, the teenage daughter of a career girlboss-dropshipper meets-Moms-For-Liberty vampire slayer, has just been turned into a vampire by this same charismatic leader, who's her mom's longstanding nemesis. As both Fawn and Rachel cope with the ways their lives have changed and explore the new social worlds they're thrust into, we meet a wide array of ensemble characters who bring heart, humor, and make the world feel real.
Of course, Fawn and Rachel's paths cross, and this book offers plenty of gripping moments of action, excitement, and suspense mixed in with tender and thoughtful character development scenes. Schrieve is asking several ~important~ and juicy questions, such as:
- Must all vampires who drink human blood feel tortured and ashamed about it? In a real world with vampires and humans, what kinds of consensual and mutually-satisfying blood-drinking arrangements would naturally arise?
- In vampire media like Buffy, Buffy and co. relentlessly murder vampires on sight after it's repeatedly established that they have personalities, consciousness, and agency like living humans. What does this violence say about the slayers and the world they're living in, and how would vampires react to it if Joss Whedon wasn't the one writing?
- What does vampire-slaying do to a person? What is it like to have a vampire slayer as a mom? (spoiler: not fabulous)
This book is written for teens, and I would absolutely recommend it to young readers, many of whom will really enjoy the realistic portrayals of the complexity of teen social life and agency in a world where they have some power but are also disenfranchised. I would also recommend this book to adults looking for queer, trans, and/or vampire-focused content. The complexity of Schrieve's characters, hir respect for the inner worlds of people of all ages, and the questions xie asks about the world of the story make this a satisfying book for teen and adults alike. I want to give a special shoutout for the real, raw, and loving ways xie writes about the exhilarations and pitfalls of connections between queer young people and queer adults in a world where any kind of intergenerational contact between queer people is increasingly demonized but so important for building a sense of belonging, community, and power.
This book is fun! I highly recommend it! There are a lot of characters, which creates a really rich world but can occasionally be confusing if one is reading quickly, so be prepared to maybe jot down a few names in your notes app (it's worth it!!)
October 1, 2025
National Book Award long listed author Hal Schrieve does it again with Fawn’s Blood, weaving queer youth with ancient monsters in this edge of your seat, bite-me thriller vampire saga with characters you love to hate like Cain an egotistical elder vampire and June a bad ass vampire slayer mom. Take the bad choices of these two adults and witness the fallout onto the two queer protagonists, Rachel and Fawn. These two are imperfect and sweet and brave and when their paths finally cross sparks fly (and blood is sucked). Throw in same unrequited love, a synthetic blood racket by a biotech company, and blood sellers all set on the backdrop of gritty Seattle and you have a YA horror novel that is ripe for Halloween readers everywhere! School and public libraries and indie bookstores should have it on their shelves.
January 23, 2025
On the one hand, feels silly to review my own book, but on the other-- I care a lot about my characters. This is a book I wrote because I love monsters, and because it's clear we are in another vampire era, with AIDS-era anxieties about queerness and contagion and culture-war conspiracies resurfacing.
I think vampires should be freaky and multi-form beings offering humans ways of expressing our need to transcend our limited bodies, and to defy and scare those who already want us dead. It's a response to Buffy; it's a response to Carmilla; it's in conversation with Isaac Fellman's Dead Collections.
As with all my books, it's about queer community and how we love and disappoint each other. I hope you like it.
I think vampires should be freaky and multi-form beings offering humans ways of expressing our need to transcend our limited bodies, and to defy and scare those who already want us dead. It's a response to Buffy; it's a response to Carmilla; it's in conversation with Isaac Fellman's Dead Collections.
As with all my books, it's about queer community and how we love and disappoint each other. I hope you like it.
October 11, 2025
the kind of YA i wish i'd had as a teen! was a little wary going in with the "monsters/people with Powers as metaphor for oppressed group" trope, since that usually takes the form of "yes people are bigoted towards the monsters but said monsters ARE actually pretty dangerous, so it makes sense"--when real-life bigotry doesn't have that neat kind of rationale. but shrieve turns that on its head in a meta way that relies on readers' understanding of vampire lore/media, which i loved a lot. just overall a really good time
December 29, 2025
Camp Amazing Awful Beautiful and Horrible, Schrieve did amazing with this. Ahhhhh
June 29, 2025
YA VAMPIRE BOOKS ARE SO BACK! 'fawn's blood' is a whirlwind story about queer teens (some human, some vampire) just simply trying to make it through whatever life throws at them. whether it's your best friend potentially faking his death and runs off to become a vampire or you're a vampire hunter that becomes a vampire, not to worry because somewhere along the way you'll find another queer teen who's having just as bad a day as you but will help you get through it! hal schrieve has given us a YA book that isn't just for teens, even adults can pick this one up and still find things that can be relatable or can be learned from. especially in today's world, where an ugly and hateful administration is actively attacking the trans community, we all could use a book about some trans & queer youth that's full of rebellion and friendship.
massive thank you to 7 stories press for sending an early copy my way <3
massive thank you to 7 stories press for sending an early copy my way <3
January 12, 2026
a truly brilliant YA queer/trans vampire novel from Hal Schrieve! Ze is always lowkey a genius at writing stories/building worlds where fantasy elements are not used as a metaphor for existing systems of opportession etc, but instead figuring out how those elements would fit into existing world/hierarchies. which is always so interesting/creative and makes the world feel so real and lived in.
in this story, vampires are an oppressed class socially and legally forbidden from feeding on ppl (event though we learn they can feed on ppl safely and with health benefits to the "donor"), and their oppression has only accelerated since the start of the COVID pandemic's blood shortage. The main characters are Rachel: a teen girl who has been groomed from a young age to be part of her mom's vampire hunting vigliante group only to then get turned into a vampire herself, and Fawn, a trans girl and vampire lover who runs away from home to track down her friend who has faked his own death to join a vampire cult.
there's so much great/interesting stuff here about having to figure out ways to work together with people you don't necessarily like/under circumstances not of your own choosing to advance community survival, right wing vigilantes/influencers, child influencer exploitation, consent, intergenerational frienships,blood kink, accelerating fascism and disinvestment in social goods post COVID, tech billionaire grifters destroying society, figuring out the guy you have a huge crush on in high school is actually very annoying, and more. also in maybe somewhat more metaphorical/less direct terms, themes of sex work and respecting sex workers and leather queer communities and histories
also it is serious but also funny! true for this queer story as is true for queer life
anyway, please don't tellMAVIS Moms for Liberty about this transgender vampire blood kink book for children (extremely complimentary), but do tell queer and trans people of all ages to go read it ASAP
in this story, vampires are an oppressed class socially and legally forbidden from feeding on ppl (event though we learn they can feed on ppl safely and with health benefits to the "donor"), and their oppression has only accelerated since the start of the COVID pandemic's blood shortage. The main characters are Rachel: a teen girl who has been groomed from a young age to be part of her mom's vampire hunting vigliante group only to then get turned into a vampire herself, and Fawn, a trans girl and vampire lover who runs away from home to track down her friend who has faked his own death to join a vampire cult.
there's so much great/interesting stuff here about having to figure out ways to work together with people you don't necessarily like/under circumstances not of your own choosing to advance community survival, right wing vigilantes/influencers, child influencer exploitation, consent, intergenerational frienships,blood kink, accelerating fascism and disinvestment in social goods post COVID, tech billionaire grifters destroying society, figuring out the guy you have a huge crush on in high school is actually very annoying, and more. also in maybe somewhat more metaphorical/less direct terms, themes of sex work and respecting sex workers and leather queer communities and histories
also it is serious but also funny! true for this queer story as is true for queer life
anyway, please don't tell
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