Book Review: Zomromcom by Olivia Dade

Official Synopsis: When Edie Brandstrup attempts to save her sweet, seemingly harmless human neighbor from the first major zombie breach in two decades, she’s stunned to be saved by him—and his ridiculously large sword—instead. As it turns out, he's actually a super-old, super-surly vampire. But for all her neighbor's newly revealed cynicism and lethality, Gaston "Max" Boucher (yes, Gaston) is unexpectedly protective. He wants her to stay in his safety bunker until the breach is resolved. Edie can’t risk more innocent people getting killed, though—and Max won’t let her save them alone.

As they unravel a sinister conspiracy to set zombies loose on the world (again), the duo meet a host of lovable allies and discover they're not the only ones willing to fight for the future of humanity. Despite the awful timing, Edie finds herself falling for the vampire who’s helping her save the world . . . but all their dangerous plans could end their future before it even begins. As she and Max battle side by side, Edie must decide whether having a love worth living for also means having a love you'd die for—and, in a world that grows deadlier by the minute, whether that’s a risk she’s willing to take.

I have read quite a few Olivia Dade books at this point and this one has probably snuck in as being one of my favorites. Is it because there is a hot vampire love interest? Maybe. Is it also because Oliva Dade continues to have plus sized main characters who people find sexy? Also yes.

Edie has been alone in her family home for a while, living across the road from her frat-boy neighbor who never seems to want her friendship. When she is one the way home and sees a zombie about to attack her neighbor, she decides to try to save him...with a burrito. After a fight that leaves her vulnerable, she is taken into her neighbor's house, who seemingly has an underground lair and is definitely not some frat-boy. Instead she learns that Max is a vampire, who's age she doesn't know, who is definitely French and also has a fashion Youtube channel. She also definitely didn't know he was a vampire until now and as he tries to protect her from the zombies, and herself, they end up agreeing to try to find a way to alert the others in their community about the zombie hoard, who seems more intelligent then the last batch.

Edie can't help but wonder how many times her neighbor has been secretly saving her, or if she should be scared that he is a vampire. But as their adventures continue their connection to each other grows deeper. From traveling having snacks for the both of them, to him making fun of her food and her using his real name Gaston to sing songs to him, the book has both a serious and humorous tone. Honestly, if any of us knew a Gaston in real life we'd also be trying to sing his antics into the song from Beauty and the Beast, which was one of my favorite bits of the book. I really liked the tension built between her singing his name and him calling her 'human' under his breath all the time. The banter between the two characters was really well written.

During their adventure we also run into different types of paranormals, from witches to fae to trolls. I really liked how the additions worked in the book and how the supernatural and humans seemed to work together, for the most part. I also really liked the plot line that the zombies were made by the government to act like a military, which I found to be a new take on them overall. I think having a group of non-normals trying to fight a zombie hoard that may or may not have killed the other humans was really fun, but also having it be near the holidays so who knew if anyone else was even left in the containment zone. Something about a semi-low stakes paranormal was really nice and being able to relax into it was great.

This book definitely isn't rewriting any of the paranormal romances we are used to, even with some deeper plot points within the story. Overall, the main concept of the story is surviving the attack of zombies (who speak French?) and try to figure out why no one is alerting to the fact that zombies got through the barriers. But as a sucker (ha) for a good paranormal romance and a certified vampire lover, I am excited to see more of these types of books being written by romance authors. (we don't always need our vampires to be serious).

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and even with the tense moments you still understood that overall it was a romance. I'm excited to see how this story may progress and seeing how other romance authors start to dive back into paranormal romance. I would also like to note that the audiobook narrator of this book did a really good job and I very much enjoyed how the story was read and their tones (also their random French.)

I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Zomromcom is out now!

Goodreads