I'm not the target audience for this book, I'll start with that right of the bat. But that's usually not an issue, I read a lot of YA fantasy and mostly enjoy it, and this book sounded intriguing and hilarious. Sadly, it just wasn't..

I knew pretty much right away that the writing was not for me. I didn't like it and it felt too simplistic and honestly a little silly. I couldn't get invested in the plot (or characters) at all and it just felt.... nonsensical? And like I get that that is the point but it just felt so incredibly flat. I did finish it, although I will admit I skimmed most of the middle portion, but I felt nothing but relief when I got to the end of that (ridiculous) finale.

This is the author's first YA book. Her previous books have been for children and I feel like that is evident in the writing. This feels so much younger than any other YA book I've read. If I wasn't aware it was YA (and if the characters weren't 15-16) I'd easily have assumed this was a book for 9-12 year-olds.

I really didn't like this but it had an interesting premise.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

This book is marketed as for teens, and pitched as Buffy meets Geek Girls. Now I'm not a teen and haven't read any Geek Girl but I have loved Buffy since I was a teen so thought would give it a go.

Mo is 15 and is ambushed on her bike ride home by an ancient Vampire, Bogdan, who belives she is the Chosen One to be Vampire Queen of Great Britain. But Mo has a plan, and being a Vampire Queen gets in the way of this. But her attraction to Luca - who would become her familiar when she is Queen- confuses her decision. What's a 15 year old Vegetarian with a Crush to do....

This was a great, fun, easy read and exactly what I needed

This is really quite a silly story. It's supposed to be funny, and I get it, really i understand why and wherenshould be funny but it wasn't for me. basically everything that happens is nonsense, the vampires are ridiculous and make no sense. There is no reasons for why Mo is the chosen one. Nor there are any reasons why she takes the decision she takes. Most of the situation with the vampire that should've been funny weren't really funny. I love nonsense in general when it is well presented and with a nonsense in general world building. this was a little too out of the blue. The world building arround the vampires wasn't there, they don't even have a cultural background as they are, from the east, That's all...
The story of overcoming bullying the growth of the main character, learning how to stand for herself, and the friendship story were nice though. And lots of people can relate to it, I know I did. There are some big teaching in here. So that was the part of this that I enjoyed. I usually enjoy teens and YA books but this one was too childish for me and I was bored for 3 quarters of the book. I found the end of the book, dealing with the truth and the king of the East very entretainng if only more of the book would have been like that. I think the youngest in teens and ya would likely enjoy this book much more than I did.

I'll be honest this books wasn't what I was expecting. I did like the character Mo who seems like a very focused young girl. She also shows how important it is to fix your mistakes. I expected Mo to be more of a Tracey character and thought Luca was hiding a secret as to who he really was.

This is a good read and definitely appeal more to the younger end of the age group it is aimed at.

Just couldn't get into this book!
I found the writing a bit too 'try hard' with the comedy. It didn't feel natural and just felt like the gags came first, and then the plot was written around them.
It also felt incredibly young - know its aimed for YA but felt more like middle grade.
Just didn't do it for me!

I am not the target audience for this book, I am 38 but I loved it and I loved Bogdan. This was an easy read and very funny. I used the famous meerkats accent for Bogdan in my head. I can’t wait until I can sample the audiobook version.

Many thanks to Netgalley and HotKeys books for this ARC. I will definitely look at more books by Jo Simmons for teens in future!

I liked that this was a more unusual take on the teen vampire genre. It wasn't anything like your average vampire romance. Mo is the Chosen One, and supposedly destined to be the Queen of the Vampires, at least in the UK. However, she really doesn't want to actually be a vampire. So she comes up with a plan to fake being turned into a vampire. But can she juggle her plan for her future (uni and a big career), her relationship with her best friend, being the vampire queen by night and trying to start a relationship with her familiar/servant?
it was a fun idea, but I just felt that despite the original story idea itself, the actual storyline was a bit dull and predictable. I still enjoyed the book enough to finish it, but I wasn't really that taken in by it, sadly.

Thank you so much to the publisher and to Netgalley for sending me an advanced copy in return for an honest review!

[Content warnings: death, threat, bullying, loneliness, stress]

Mo Merrydrew is a normal teenage girl - she works hard at school, has a best friend she spends all her time with, and is the vampire queen...

Wait, what?

When Mo is approached by ancient vampire Bogdan and he tells her she's the Chosen One, she obviously doesn't believe him. And she doesn't want to. She's got way too much homework AND she's a vegetarian, which doesn't really make the vampire life easy.

But when Bogdan says she must become queen or she and her family will be in danger, she comes up with a brilliant plan - to pretend to turn into a vampire, and live both lives at once. This plan is made much more appealing when she realises she gets her own very attractive familiar to serve her, a teenage boy called Luca.

What could go wrong?

This was a fresh, less-serious twist on the teenage vampire novel, which I think is much needed! Mo is so relatable. I found it hilarious that the main reason she didn't want to be vampire queen is because she needed to get her homework done.

She reminded me so much of myself when I was a teen and it's always nice to see characters like you, who just want to get through high school with as little drama as possible - and as little death, if you don't mind.

The Reluctant Vampire Queen is like a modern Buffy the Vampire Slayer made for younger teens. It's laugh-out-loud funny, witty, and fun. I would recommend this to any young teen wanting to move forward from middle grade novels but are unsure as to whether they're ready for young adult titles.

"When dogs are lost to men, wolves sharpen their teeth."
"I see." said Mo. She didn't.

E-ARC from NetGalley, Hot Key Books, and Bonnier Books in exchange for an honest review.

Angus Thongs meets Young Dracula in this witty and enjoyable young adult comedy about a young girl who finds out she's the Chosen One.

If you'd given 15 year old me the chance to become Vampire Queen, I'd have bitten your hand off. But not Mo Merrydrew. Mo is sensible and has mini battenbergs and her plans to think about (or rather 'The Plan').

Mo's Plan means she has to work hard at school to achieve her goal of becoming a politician when she grows up, but her life gets turned upside down when she's presented with the opportunity to turn into a bloodthirsty, ruthless monster of a different kind.

Being faced with such a difficult decision makes things tricky for Mo, and adding an attractive boy to the mix certainly doesn't help. Will she be able to be the Vampire Queen and carry out her Plan? You'll want to read on and find out!

With funny and witty dialogue, outlandish characters, and good old fashioned teenage angst, The Reluctant Vampire Queen is a great read for all the spooky teenagers out there.

The Reluctant Vampire Queen sounded very interesting, unfortunately I got a bad feeling from the moment I started reading this book. I stopped reading at 47%, but honestly I should have stopped reading as soon as the first vampire character turned up with the stereotypical Eastern European accent. It was terrible, and what also bothers me is that a book written in 2022 referred to characters as “Eastern European” and being from “Eastern Europe” rather than providing them with a specific cultural identity. It gave the impression that the author had not bothered to fill out that part of the story, as well as assuming that young adult readers don’t need those details.

This is the first young adult novel by the author, Jo Simmons, in fact it’s her first book not written for children, and to be honest, that shows throughout the book. The language is very immature for a young adult, feeling more appropriate for a middle grade novel. Other than the character being sixteen and the quick (and awkward) discussion of consent with her mum, this could easily be a story about younger teenagers. Simmons’ use of slang is also all over the place, which I’m surprised an editor missed. At one point she uses modern slang when a bully calls Mo a “neek” (geek and nerd combined), and then later she uses slang which is two generations out of date when an adult asks Mo if she’s “going steady” with a boy. That’s the sort of language my grandparents would have used, not a modern day parent.

The biggest transgression for me though is the way that Simmons does complete injustice to her own character. Mo is written as a smart girl, a geek who plans everything. So can someone please explain to me how her plan to fake being a vampire involves stealing someone else’s mouth guard and painting vampire fangs on it?! This is a girl who’s first instinct when faced with vampires is to go straight into research mode, yet when she decides to fake being one she doesn’t research it at all? She suddenly acts out of character, steals a mouth guard, which if you’ve never used one before has to be moulded to a person’s mouth to fit properly, and decides that’s the best course of action. It makes zero sense. Not to mention that in the universe of The Reluctant Vampire Queen vampires can’t go out during the day, so how exactly is Mo going to continue to go to school, live at home and hide that she’s still human from Luca and the vampires? This is the point where I stopped reading as it was too ridiculous to contemplate.

What’s worse is that the vampire who turned her can’t tell that she’s not a vampire. I’m sorry, what?!The Reluctant Vampire Queen is a good example of why I’m not a fan of publishing’s current trend of comparing books with other books/franchises. Sometimes it’s accurate, often it’s just a publicity student to reel the reader in with false pretences and that is certainly the case here. I feel that whoever decided to make this comparison has never actually watched Butty, because anyone who has will remember a particular episode where Willow pretends to be a vampire and is found out not to be one pretty darn quickly. Yes, Buffy had a lot of comedic elements, but it took it’s supernatural world-building seriously. This book seems to have none at all which disappoints me. I loved the premise of this book, but it’s more high school romcom with vampires thrown in as a cool afterthought than anything actually supernatural. I personally didn’t really see the comedy side of this book, and perhaps if this was a TV show or a Mr Bean movie it would have been funny, instead it just comes off badly.

I’ve not read Geek Girl, so I can’t compare it, however, as a geek girl myself Mo feels very stereotypical. She feels like what people expect a geek or a nerd to be; good at school, only focused on school and making clubs that no one else ever joins. There is so much more to being a geek or nerd than academics, and yes, geeks and nerds are two different things. She even chooses to study over spending time with her best friend, Lou. Speaking of Lou, I’m not actually sure what the point of the character is as she is seriously underutilised as an actual best friend. As soon as “dreamy Luca” comes on the scene Mo pretty much drops her bestie (for her “own good”).

I’m sure The Reluctant Vampire Queen will work for some people, but if you read the plot and thought “hey this sounds great” and like a more serious urban fantasy novel, then I would give it a pass. It’s sadly not that kind of book.

A fun, quick and easy fantasy read that die hard fantasy fans may not like but if you like fun reads or fun fantasy then this book is for you. I really enjoyed it.

I have to be straight up with you, I didn't enjoy this. I hate leaving negative reviews but and try to find some good in this but honestly the only good thing was how much they mentioned mini battenbergs and that, considering the fact that they were always capitalised like a proper noun when they're not, isn't much to go on. I do read quite a bit of Teen/YA fiction and this sounded solidly up my alley. I've read plenty of books where the main character goofs and loses her friend over a boy. So many books where the main character can't tell anyone what's happening for fear of it all falling apart. And yet none of them were as naff as this.

I think it's a solid premise, don't get me wrong. I think this, written either by this author with some guidance by some greats of the Teen/YA fiction category, or written by one of those greats could have been excellent. But instead we're left with a brainiac main character who has no personality and only does stupid things, surrounded by other personality-less pipe cleaner people. I don't know why pipe cleaner people came to mind but you get my drift. It's shallow, no one is interesting, she's the 'Chosen One' because she just has 'something', there's no real consequences for her actions that aren't resolved a couple of days later and now she just gets to be the vampire queen? Gods preserve us from a sequel where she is the fake vampire queen queening it up.

Mo is an ordinary schoolgirl. She keeps her head down, working hard in school, according to 'the Plan' to secure herself a bright future, staying out of the way of her bully Tracey Caldwell, and eating mini battenbergs with best friend Lou. But the arrival of vampire Bogdan makes her, and the reader, wonder if she's that ordinary after all. Bogdan thinks, feels even, that she's The Chosen One, destined to become the Vampire Queen and rule all the vampires of Great Britain. Of course Mo can't become Vampire Queen because 1/ it would come in the way of The Plan, and 2/ she would have to become a vampire herself, drink blood and say goodbye to mini-battenbergs, or that's what she thinks until Bogdan's familiar, Luca, turns up with his good looks and freshly baked goods scent.

As the story progresses, Mo has to make some very difficult choices, trying to keep everyone happy but nearly losing her best friend in the process. And there's the extra difficulty of the terrifying Vampire King who wants to make sure all is well in Great Britain.

I really enjoyed the Reluctant Vampire Queen. It's full of humour with some very horrific moments - it's a vampire story after all! But with lots of funny and attaching mundane details (such as Mo's dad's shed becoming a sort of vampires headquarters, renting and decorating the local vilage hall with bunting to receive the Vampire King or offering him a drink of blended worms). There is no predictability to this story, every new turn is a surprise, and it is certainly a journey, for the reader as well as for Mo herself who slowly drifts away from the safety of the Plan, discovers just how strong she is and awakens to many new possibilities.

Mo Merrydrew has a PLAN which involves studying hard, attending university and gaining a glittering career in politics or law. It does not involve boys and definitely didn’t feature vampires but it seems that the universe has an alternative plan for her. Will she accept the chosen one role that has been laid out for her and put her lifelong dreams on the back burner?

Or will she try to have it all?

The Geek Girl meets Buffy comparison is pretty spot on, think of the episode of Buffy where she meets Dracula, or the original Buffy movie, and you’ve got a good idea what you’d be heading into.

Other comparisons I’d give it would be an aged down What We Do in the Shadows or an aged up The Little Vampire. It did read a little young so fits very firmly in the teen bracket over what we’ve come to expect from YA. It’s very much a comedy rather than a horror.

The friendship between Mo and Lou is explored well, particularly when it is breaking down.

But who is the real villain of the piece? Mean girl Tracey or the Vampire King of Europe? Mo’s internal journey to fight her fear is important in terms of her success or failure to address the challenges of these two.

And then there is Luca, a vampire’s familiar, but also a dreamy cute hottie. I really enjoyed his character and how he provided a bridge between the vampire and human world. I also felt pretty sorry for him having to do a particular one of the familiar’s tasks. Queens are certainly demanding and Vampire Queens - even reluctant ones are no different.

Overall this was a really fun, pacy read, that seems to be the first in a series, and I’m very interested to see where it goes next.

I received an E-ARC of this book via netgalley. Opinions are all my own.

This is such a fun read, it is not a book you go into for a serious dip into fantasy. Mo is just a typical teenage girl who gets thrust into a brand new role/world. I adored this book, it was so much fun and such a quick read.

Unassuming teenager Mo Merrydrew is accosted one evening by Bogdan, the current Vampire King, insisting that she is next in line to be his successor and become the Vampire Queen. Although she is initially baffled and sceptical she gets to grips with this newly bestowed honour, helped in no small part by the arrival of handsome and compliant vampire familiar Luca, who is now going to be her new companion. She is spurred on by her crush on lovely Luca but decides she is unwilling to really turn into a vampire or keep any secrets about what's going on from her best friend Lou, which quickly lands her in hot water with the imminent arrival of another Vampire King of the East, keen to meet the incumbent Queen.

It's cleverly done with lots of knowing references and amusing plays on familiar vampire fiction tropes, and our continually exasperated but ever resourceful heroine is easy to like and engage with. It's set for more in series although I don't quite know where they will be headed with this premise! It's enjoyable and has good teen appeal.

This was a really quick and easy book to read - I managed to finish it in just a couple of days!
I liked Mo as a main character. I thought it was really nice to see someone with so much ambition, but for it to be ambition with good intention. She was also clever. It was interesting to see how she could balance being a vampire with her Plan.
I thought the conflict in this worked, and I was glad to see Mo still trying to do normal things alongside everything everything. I liked her relationship with Luca and Lou.
It was also fun to see how vampires were portrayed not seriously in this!

This book is about a 15 year-old girl named Mo who gets some exciting yet terrifying news from a man she’s never met before, that she’s the ‘chosen-one’. If you love fast-paced books that get straight into the actual plot this book is for you. I particularly liked the relationship she has between her best friend Lou and Mo’s amazing thought process throughout the entire book. I don’t think I could of been as smart as she was. This book is great for any age, I think it would be great for a young teenager. The book kind of reminds me on the tv show ‘The Vampire Diaries’. I loved reading this book and can’t wait to read more books from this author. I really recommend it.

I want to start by saying I am likely not the intended audience. Growing up with TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Charmed I thought this may be a sort of nostalgic trip down memory lane with some funny quirky characters and vampires.

Unfortunately even when I kept in mind this may be for someone younger than myself I was questioning just how young. A few reviews see this as Young Adult and normally I find these enjoyable with The Reluctant Vampire Queen I felt it sometimes changed it’s aim and intended audience. From young adult to very early teen. Personally I’d put it towards early teen rather than young adult. Or perhaps, as I say it was just not for me.

We follow Mo Merrydrew who is the stereotypical geek of the school but suddenly becomes The Chosen One. She is meant to become the Vampire Queen of Great Britain. Only Mo has The Plan she wants to follow and it doesn’t involve being turned into a Vampire or ruling over anyone unelected.

Beyond seeing bits of myself from my school days in Mo I couldn’t really connect with any of the characters. There didn’t seem to be any development throughout which made me think this is more intended for younger teens. I appreciate it was partly meant to be funny but I also found the contradiction in Mo’s character as soon as the ‘handsome’ Luca appears to be rather frustrating.

That said it wasn’t all bad. There were some funny lines and parts that I will remember and stick with me, always a good sign. It was also an easy and quick read. So if you are looking for a bit of fun and fluff to bridge your reading or just something to unwind to with a supernatural and funny vibe this might be for you. I think my view was skewed with my expectations and the changing in style. I certainly have and do enjoy the occasional middle grade and younger teen story I found this one just missed the mark for me. I do think it may be a good stepping stone for teens looking to go into the more supernatural genre.

I’ve rounded this up to four stars though purely because of the Monty Python reference. At least I hoped it was one about the election of ruling officials. That did make me laugh. I also want to add there is a lot of ‘British’ Humour which may not be fully appreciated by an international audience. And Bogdan. I did like Bogdan. He deserves at least half a star on his own.
As always thank you to Netgalley and HotKey Books. I have left this review voluntarily.

I have read the other reviews and realise I am alone here but I would not be recommending this to anyone. I found the plot silly but not funny in anyway and the characters were simple and flat. I did not think it was well written at all and whilst I realised it was for people far, far younger than I am, there are much better novels out there. I am glad some people found this enjoying because I know any book takes time and hard work but I was just left disappointed. Enjoyed the concept, hated the execution (real or fake).