Review: Love Immortal by Kit Vincent

Title: Love Immortal

Author: Kit Vincent

Length: 326 Pages

Category: Horror, Paranormal, Dark Academia

Rating: 3.5 Stars

At a Glance: Love Immortal is a satisfying vampire/human romance. It doesn’t set out to reinvent the genre, and it doesn’t need to. There is not a strict ending to the story, though, so all you completionists be aware.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Jonathan Evergreen is a talented sophomore at a prestigious, isolated college in Vermont, who dreams of a career in book conservation. But Jonathan’s life isn’t as rosy as it may appear. Disowned by his family after they caught him with another boy, he struggles to overcome heartbreak and support himself through his studies. To make matters worse, his advisor and the only ally in the institution run by old money and family connections mysteriously vanishes, and a new enigmatic professor, Dacian Bathory, takes his place.

Even though Jonathan is instantly drawn to Dacian, feeling a deep, intense connection between them, Dacian’s hot and cold behavior leaves him puzzled. But things change when Dacian unexpectedly helps him secure a job at the college’s Rare Books library from which an antique book recently went missing—a book that Dacian seems to have a deep interest in.

As their attraction grows, sinister events start to unfold around campus: people disappearing in the dead of night, a group of legacies showing signs of increasingly disturbing behavior, and a dead body washing up nearby, completely drained of blood. Plagued by unsettling dreams that feel too close to reality, Jonathan suspects that some of these events might be connected to Dacian.

With the stakes escalating and his own life on the line, can Jonathan unravel the truth about Dacian and confront the darkness before it consumes them both?

Review: I spent a lot of time (way too much) wondering what prompted Kit Vincent to set Love Immortal in 1987. I came up with a few ideas: no cell phone cameras, no internet, and, finally, the social complexion of the time period for LGBTQ+ folks offers extra emotional weight to Jonathan Evergreen’s story. These factors not only make the itch of Jonathan’s curiosity a lot more difficult to scratch, particularly when it comes to Dacian Bathory, but it also affords an extra sense of menace to the absence of immediate contact before we were glued to smartphones .

This dark tale isn’t a new twist on vampire romance. In fact, it leans entirely into Dracula lore to tell its story, including the Renfields (minus the fly eating, thankfully). Jonathan’s narration is singularly focused on himself, his background, his thoughts and feelings, his passion for books and their preservation, and the mystery that is the new Gothic lit teacher. Dacian is reserved, enigmatic, and his initial reaction to Jonathan both confuses and incites Jonathan’s curiosity. It doesn’t hurt that Dacian is also young and beautiful, so Jonathan can’t help but be cautiously attracted.

Love Immortal is a satisfying vampire/human romance. It doesn’t set out to reinvent the genre, and it doesn’t need to. The information Jonathan uncovers during his research of who Dacian is, where he came from, and how a missing diary factors into his history offers some new twists to an old tale. The dark academic setting was also an inspired choice to explore some twisted avarice.

There is not a strict ending to the story, so all you completionists be aware. Things are left hanging, maybe for a sequel where Jonathan’s mortality would come into question, if he and Dacian decide to take the plunge into relationship waters. Oxford University would be a fantastic setting for more gothic horror.