Cutting Your Teeth Caylan Macrae by Caylan Macrae 9798987606506, 8987606503, B0BTWMVBH9 instant download after payment.

Ezra Santos is tired of running. Of burning bridge after bridge and going through new names like used matches. He desperately wants something he was never destined to have—a future all his own. Having escaped his hell of a home two years ago, he can’t go a day without looking over his shoulder. Putting down roots was never in the cards when the family that raised Ezra relentlessly hunts him across the country. Right as he’s about to restart the cycle—new name, new life, the whole nine yards—his plans come to a screeching halt when he crosses paths with a mysterious and charismatic vampire, Killian Hale. He promises a way out from a life on the run. Ezra knows there's no helping a man with the devil on his heels—but there's something about Killian that makes him believe he could finally break free of the Espinas once and for all. It’s only a matter of time before the clock winds down and the rest of Ezra's troubles come home to roost. There's something sinister in his blood—a dark fate passed down through generations. Can the two survive an ancient family curse or will Ezra doom them both?

"Must read." - Lisbeth Ivies, Reedsy Discovery

My relationship with vampire novels, especially ones that fall in the romance category, is like a person who loves spicy food even if it gives them stomach problems most of the time. The reason I keep diving in despite that? The possibility of finding novels like Cutting Your Teeth. Many of the common tropes are there: much older vampire saving young human damsel dude in distress, some new twist on traditional supernatural lore, and a small dose of chosen one. Author Caylan MacRae crafts an LGBTQ+ narrative that transcends these.

A supernatural mix between horror and romance, it's the very real characters and their very real problems that anchor this story so much for me. I wouldn't have thought I'd find topics like childhood trauma and existentialism in my vampire novel, but I'm thankful for it. The plot reminded me of an onion, layers upon layers yet still managing to be cohesive all the same. And parts are going to leave a bad taste in your mouth, but they are supposed to. Don't forget those couple of elements of horror tossed into the blender even if sweeter moments can lull the reader into a false sense of security.

Tone and word choice round out why I enjoyed Cutting Your Teeth so much. The main character, a barely ex-teenager on the run, keeps the right amount of sarcasm and edginess without feeling overdone. I blame my decision to read the novel on the cage fight in the first chapter and excerpt. The description made it easy to picture what was happening, and more than in just a visual sense because of the frequent appeals to other senses too. That same quality persisted throughout. In fact, the novel was pretty near perfect with only a few scattered errors.

I highly recommend Cutting Your Teeth to any fan of supernatural, or any Supernatural fan for that matter. I hope the inclusion of an impala and the chemistry between characters (not just the romantic leads) were a nod in that direction. If not, the chords struck were very similar. A world was built with this first book, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to it in the rest of the series.