Book Review: “Runaway Vampire” by Lynsay Sands

Warning: If you have not read “Runaway Vampire” by Lynsay Sands, don’t read this review in case you don’t want spoilers!

I’m back with another book review, and this time it’s “Runaway Vampire” by Lynsay Sands! Here’s a summary so we know what it’s about:

“Dante Notte has heard it said that love hurts. He just wasn’t expecting it to run him over in an RV. Still, a punctured lung and broken ribs are nothing compared to the full-body shock he feels whenever he’s near the vehicle’s driver, Mary Winslow. He needs to keep her safe from their pursuers while he rescues his brother. Most challenging of all, he needs to claim this smart, stubborn woman as his life mate.

The naked, injured, insanely gorgeous younger man who clambered into her RV insists they belong together. If Mary wasn’t feeling their incredible connection in every inch of her being, she wouldn’t believe it. But now that the men who took Dante’s twin are after her too, trusting her gut means risking her life for an immortal who’s the very definition of a perfect stranger.”

This is, once again, one of those books you read that come off as incredibly weird, especially once one gets into the worldbuilding being explained and how the vampires in this book work. However, it’s so weird that it’s good. It’s also weird that it’s strangely convenient to turn a sixty-something-year-old protagonist into a young-looking person, but the worldbuilding makes this believable enough for me to keep reading. I’m not going to spoil too much too much on the worldbuilding, so I’ll just stop there.

I do think Dante and Mary get together a little too fast, overall, but other than that, they had believable chemistry. I do think it felt a bit too convenient that almost every male character other than Date and a few minor male characters were absolutely horrible, as well as Dante’s mind-reading revealing all of that instantly after meeting them. However, I do think that Dante and Mary make a pretty believable pairing despite all of that. Dante clearly cares for her and Mary cares much for him, no matter how wild the situation got for them in the book.

Our main couple, Dante and Mary, are not the only couple featured in the book. We also have an already-established beta couple in the form of Russel and Francis, and those also have some cute chemistry going on (though there are no sex scenes for these two). I honestly just want to read a book about those two because they have good chemistry between each other and are supportive of each other.

The sex scenes, though, graphic, weren’t too badly written overall. One could visualize all or most of what was going on in those scenes without anatomical errors (or at least, none that I noticed). I do think there might be some realistic issues with some scenes that weren’t sex scenes, though, such as Mary sitting on Dante’s lap and still driving a car early on, but I’m not entirely sure. I’m trying to take this with a grain of salt because I know this is fiction I’m reading, but I can’t help but be a bit concerned for their physical safety.

What mainly irks me about the book is how soon Mary got over the fact that she wouldn’t be able to visit her family (including grandkids) due to her now being so young again and basically on the run with Dante. I thought she would spend at least one or two more chapters ruminating over that, especially given she considered them so important to her after her late husband Joe died, and I just found it a bit odd as of how she got over it so quickly.

What I also didn’t like about the book was how abrupt the ending felt. The main situation in the book was resolved, but it felt resolved a bit too fast.

Overall, 3 out of 5 stars!

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