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Love Bites: In the Shadow of Identity
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Author
Jasper is a Spirit-Talker, a person with the task of fighting against the supernatural spirits that hinder everyday life, using words and weapons alike to get rid of the most harmful of these manifestations of desire.
Everything is business as usual, as he is called into another job, yet he finds out quite quickly that this spirit is unlike any he's seen before. Way out of his depth, he asks her a question, yet he is horrified to find she can comprehend all he says, and might even grow to agree to his terms.
I’ve always enjoyed stories about monster and ghost hunters, so I had no doubt I’d like Love Bites too. Overall, I’d describe the atmosphere as Lockwood & Co. meets Bat Eater. The author did a great job describing the world, the characters, and their thoughts. I literally flew through the text!
The reason it’s not a 5-star read is the repetition in the text—sometimes within the same sentence, sometimes just a sentence apart. Also, we are *told* that Jasper has family and friends, but I was extremely surprised because they didn't appear on the page until about 85% of the way through the book; they didn't interact with the protagonist and had no impact on the plot whatsoever. Plus, if there’s an entire book about the Mistress of Teeth, why hasn't anyone heard of her? Take Jasper’s conversation with his former professor, for example:
“From what I've seen, I think that a true personality is probably something that can't even be achieved by spirits that are millions of years old. We have never even seen a spirit that old, so I'd hazard a guess that the answer is no.“
Again, there is a book about the ancient ghost—admittedly, not much is known about her, but it does exist—so it’s strange that the professors don’t know about it.
Despite that, I had a wonderful time! I wasn't bored for a single second; the book hooked me right from the start, and I didn't want to put it down.
As far as I know, the author doesn't have Instagram or any other social media, so you can only request an ARC via Book Sirens—and I really urge you to do so; this book was such a treat! I’m definitely interested in her future projects!
A huge thank you to Book Sirens and Persephone R.P. Schaaf for the eARC
Everything is business as usual, as he is called into another job, yet he finds out quite quickly that this spirit is unlike any he's seen before. Way out of his depth, he asks her a question, yet he is horrified to find she can comprehend all he says, and might even grow to agree to his terms.
I’ve always enjoyed stories about monster and ghost hunters, so I had no doubt I’d like Love Bites too. Overall, I’d describe the atmosphere as Lockwood & Co. meets Bat Eater. The author did a great job describing the world, the characters, and their thoughts. I literally flew through the text!
The reason it’s not a 5-star read is the repetition in the text—sometimes within the same sentence, sometimes just a sentence apart. Also, we are *told* that Jasper has family and friends, but I was extremely surprised because they didn't appear on the page until about 85% of the way through the book; they didn't interact with the protagonist and had no impact on the plot whatsoever. Plus, if there’s an entire book about the Mistress of Teeth, why hasn't anyone heard of her? Take Jasper’s conversation with his former professor, for example:
“From what I've seen, I think that a true personality is probably something that can't even be achieved by spirits that are millions of years old. We have never even seen a spirit that old, so I'd hazard a guess that the answer is no.“
Again, there is a book about the ancient ghost—admittedly, not much is known about her, but it does exist—so it’s strange that the professors don’t know about it.
Despite that, I had a wonderful time! I wasn't bored for a single second; the book hooked me right from the start, and I didn't want to put it down.
As far as I know, the author doesn't have Instagram or any other social media, so you can only request an ARC via Book Sirens—and I really urge you to do so; this book was such a treat! I’m definitely interested in her future projects!
A huge thank you to Book Sirens and Persephone R.P. Schaaf for the eARC
Review of advance copy
Finished Reading:
Love Bites by Persephone Schaaf
__________
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Format: e-book
Pages: 338
Genre: Horror, Fantasy
LGBTQIA+ rep: Transgender MC
Publication date: September 30th, 2026
__________
Synopsis:
A spirit-talker's job isn't easy. Especially not when the prey bites back.
Jasper is a Spirit-Talker, a person with the task of fighting against the supernatural spirits that hinder everyday life, using words and weapons alike to get rid of the most harmful of these manifestations of desire.
Everything is business as usual, as he is called into another job, yet he finds out quite quickly that this spirit is unlike any he's seen before. Way out of his depth, he asks her a question, yet he is horrified to find she can comprehend all he says, and might even grow to agree to his terms.
__________
Thank you to @booksirens for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I requested this book because I thought it was gonna be a fun supernatural story with ghosts and monsters and horrific stuff in between. I was excited for it! Then I started reading the book and it was SO, MUCH, MORE!
The way spirits come into existence was unique to me and very interesting. They come forth out of people's desires. And Jasper, as a Spirit-Talker has the power to deal with those spirits. Spirits have a unique way of thinking and only 1 purpose: Achieve the goal/desire for which they were created. This made certain scenes in the book hilarious, and other excruciating...
Jasper was (to me) a very relatable person. He is depressed, lives on auto-pilot and even though he has friends, he just doesn't feel happy. Then he meets a spirit and everything he thought he knew about spirits is thrown out the window. This spirit terrifies him, but he is also curious about what makes this spirit different from all the rest...
This was an easy 5 stars for me. This is gonna be one of those books I wish I could read for the first time again...
Love Bites by Persephone Schaaf
__________
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Format: e-book
Pages: 338
Genre: Horror, Fantasy
LGBTQIA+ rep: Transgender MC
Publication date: September 30th, 2026
__________
Synopsis:
A spirit-talker's job isn't easy. Especially not when the prey bites back.
Jasper is a Spirit-Talker, a person with the task of fighting against the supernatural spirits that hinder everyday life, using words and weapons alike to get rid of the most harmful of these manifestations of desire.
Everything is business as usual, as he is called into another job, yet he finds out quite quickly that this spirit is unlike any he's seen before. Way out of his depth, he asks her a question, yet he is horrified to find she can comprehend all he says, and might even grow to agree to his terms.
__________
Thank you to @booksirens for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I requested this book because I thought it was gonna be a fun supernatural story with ghosts and monsters and horrific stuff in between. I was excited for it! Then I started reading the book and it was SO, MUCH, MORE!
The way spirits come into existence was unique to me and very interesting. They come forth out of people's desires. And Jasper, as a Spirit-Talker has the power to deal with those spirits. Spirits have a unique way of thinking and only 1 purpose: Achieve the goal/desire for which they were created. This made certain scenes in the book hilarious, and other excruciating...
Jasper was (to me) a very relatable person. He is depressed, lives on auto-pilot and even though he has friends, he just doesn't feel happy. Then he meets a spirit and everything he thought he knew about spirits is thrown out the window. This spirit terrifies him, but he is also curious about what makes this spirit different from all the rest...
This was an easy 5 stars for me. This is gonna be one of those books I wish I could read for the first time again...
Review of advance copy
Wow, this story is so unique! With intriguing protagonists and antagonists and a world filled with peculiar beings and lore, I finished hoping to hear more about Spirit-Talkers and how the system of the world works. I especially loved our main spirit in the story. The author’s description of her painted such a vivid picture of one of the most unusual character designs I’ve read in a long time. I absolutely adored her!
The writing itself is admittedly inconsistent. The author does an incredible job making you feel the main character’s inner turmoil and confusion. I loved when they came to realizations about themself and how they began to develop who they wanted to be vs who they thought society expected them to be. It was very believable. The shortcomings come from some lackluster editing. I chose not to lower the score because of the editing issues because I have an advance copy. There is definitely time to get the issues fixed, but I wanted to include it in my review in case typos, spelling, and grammar errors take some readers out of the story.
If these errors get fixed in published editions, I feel like the author has a great future ahead, both in this world they built and beyond. I can see a whole series of Spirit-Talker books about people coming to terms with who they are through the spirits. I look forward to reading more from them! So my four stars is for the story, character building, and atmosphere of a great breakout novel.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The writing itself is admittedly inconsistent. The author does an incredible job making you feel the main character’s inner turmoil and confusion. I loved when they came to realizations about themself and how they began to develop who they wanted to be vs who they thought society expected them to be. It was very believable. The shortcomings come from some lackluster editing. I chose not to lower the score because of the editing issues because I have an advance copy. There is definitely time to get the issues fixed, but I wanted to include it in my review in case typos, spelling, and grammar errors take some readers out of the story.
If these errors get fixed in published editions, I feel like the author has a great future ahead, both in this world they built and beyond. I can see a whole series of Spirit-Talker books about people coming to terms with who they are through the spirits. I look forward to reading more from them! So my four stars is for the story, character building, and atmosphere of a great breakout novel.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from Otros
𝐼 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑎 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝐴𝑅𝐶 𝑖𝑛 𝑒𝑥𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆: 4 stars.
Being honest I got here not really knowing to much, I just saw “LGBTQ horror” on booksirens, saw a beautiful cover, (in my taste), and I was immediately interested.
The story surprised my a lot in a very good way. The protagonist it's very interesting and made me re-think a lot of my own beliefs and things more than once. The world building is also very interesting, I would love to see another story set on a similar world for sure. The writing is very good, I'm surprised that this is a debut novel.
Of course, it's not perfect, and I have two main thorns about this story.
The first one it's that there is some gramatical error you can find a long the book, they are not very big ones, (at least not for me with my basic English), but hope it get another little editing to solve this before being officially publish.
The second one it's how short and divided the chapters are. It was a little difficult to dive in the story at the beginning due to this for me, but after you get the hang of it it's ok.
I really liked this story and I surely would be waiting new works of this author.
𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆: 4 stars.
Being honest I got here not really knowing to much, I just saw “LGBTQ horror” on booksirens, saw a beautiful cover, (in my taste), and I was immediately interested.
The story surprised my a lot in a very good way. The protagonist it's very interesting and made me re-think a lot of my own beliefs and things more than once. The world building is also very interesting, I would love to see another story set on a similar world for sure. The writing is very good, I'm surprised that this is a debut novel.
Of course, it's not perfect, and I have two main thorns about this story.
The first one it's that there is some gramatical error you can find a long the book, they are not very big ones, (at least not for me with my basic English), but hope it get another little editing to solve this before being officially publish.
The second one it's how short and divided the chapters are. It was a little difficult to dive in the story at the beginning due to this for me, but after you get the hang of it it's ok.
I really liked this story and I surely would be waiting new works of this author.
October 10, 2026
Jasper is a Spirit-Talker, dedicated to ridding clients of their pesky spirit inconveniences.
But not all spirits are made equal.
Jasper encounters a spirit unlike any other - ancient and powerful beyond comprehension. Rather than dissipating like your typical spirit, the Mother of Teeth provokes Jasper's journey into romance and self-discovery.
This book was not what I was expecting at all. You wouldn't be able to tell from the front cover, but Love Bites is a wholesome tale of finding love and finding yourself. Jasper's journey really resonated with me as a queer person, as he battled internalised prejudice, societal norms, bigoted 'friends', and finding your true self in someone else. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a cosy Halloween read or on their own path of self-discovery.
Thank you to the author for providing me with a free advance review copy of this book through BookSirens.
But not all spirits are made equal.
Jasper encounters a spirit unlike any other - ancient and powerful beyond comprehension. Rather than dissipating like your typical spirit, the Mother of Teeth provokes Jasper's journey into romance and self-discovery.
This book was not what I was expecting at all. You wouldn't be able to tell from the front cover, but Love Bites is a wholesome tale of finding love and finding yourself. Jasper's journey really resonated with me as a queer person, as he battled internalised prejudice, societal norms, bigoted 'friends', and finding your true self in someone else. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a cosy Halloween read or on their own path of self-discovery.
Thank you to the author for providing me with a free advance review copy of this book through BookSirens.
Review of advance copy
I want to start the review with saying I am a friend of the author and got the honor of reading this book early. Because of this my review might be biased.
I am personally not a romance fan so I cannot say much about that part of the book. What personally kept me hooked though was the exploration of the main character Jasper through his inner monologue. I really liked how his character developed throughout the story when trying to find his personal truth and found it quite moving.
I am personally not a romance fan so I cannot say much about that part of the book. What personally kept me hooked though was the exploration of the main character Jasper through his inner monologue. I really liked how his character developed throughout the story when trying to find his personal truth and found it quite moving.
Review of advance copy
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily
This book was like experiencing a very poignant fever dream. It was to me incredibly unique in its world-building and magic, Especially with it centring on how peoples innermost desires fester and twist and become very real. I think it incorporated themes of identity, desires and expectations very well.
This book was like experiencing a very poignant fever dream. It was to me incredibly unique in its world-building and magic, Especially with it centring on how peoples innermost desires fester and twist and become very real. I think it incorporated themes of identity, desires and expectations very well.
Review of advance copy
Really tried this book, but the writing style just wasn’t for me. It would benefit from a stronger edit, as there were quite a few repeated words, and the prose reads clunky.
Thank you to Book Sirens and the author for the ARC.
Thank you to Book Sirens and the author for the ARC.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews