Rating: 3.5 Stars

Publisher: Jay Castle

Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Fated Mates/Insta-Love, Paranormal Romance, Series, Vampires

Length: 120 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Pierce

My death day is sacred. I spend it the same way I wish I could spend every alone in my isolated cabin, with a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other. But when the scent of human blood shatters my solitude, I find James—unflappable, undeniably gorgeous, and utterly unafraid of me. He makes my blood boil and he stirs desires dormant for over a century. I must protect him, even if it costs me everything.

James

In the wake of my father’s passing, I go to our secluded camping spot in the mountains to scatter his ashes. It’s almost a full day’s hike from civilization and I expected to grieve alone. I never dreamed I’d get stranded by a freak snowstorm or that I’d be attacked by wolves. I certainly never imagined I’d meet someone like Pierce, the grumpy, overprotective, and annoyingly handsome vampire who saves my life. Now, snowed in and surrounded on all sides by the werewolves determined to turn me into one of them, my only protection is the vampire I’m inexplicably falling in love with.

Snowed in with the Vampire Prince is a 36,000-word fated mates novella with an HEA, instalove, a fair amount of hurt/comfort, and no cliffhanger. This is book 1 in the Blood Bonded Mates series. This book contains mild violence, strong language, spicy scenes between men, and passages depicting consensual blood drinking, as one might expect from a MM vampire romance. This book is intended for mature audiences.

Review –

“My brave, foolish human,” Pierce whispered aloud, drawing me close with his powerful arms and kissing my neck. He whispered, right into my ear, “You’re everything I’ll ever want and everything I’ll ever need. And I promise that I will love you for eternity…”

When I ended this, I was iffy about whether or not I’d be reviewing it. While I did enjoy it well enough, I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed it enough to continue with the series. But then I started skimming over reviews of the next book, Married To The Vampire King, and I realized that I’m almost curious enough about Nathaniel to read his story, so I decided to do the review. That one has 286 pages as compared to the 120 in this one, so I’m hoping for more character depth and actual story. This one was so rush, rush.

James is at a campsite that he and his late father used to go to. He’s just spread his dad’s ashes when a snowstorm pops up out of nowhere. James is about to pack up his camp and head down to his vehicle when he’s attacked by a huge wolf.

Pierce, a vampire prince, is in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It’s his death day, meaning the anniversary of the day he was turned into a vampire. It’s been 100 years since Nathaniel, the vampire king, turned him for reasons known only to Nathaniel. Pierce doesn’t appear to have a miserable life, but he still spends that one day out of the year alone.

Pierce suddenly smells the strong scent of blood. He bolts out of the cabin and ends up rescuing a human – that would be James – that has just been brutally attacked. He takes the human back to his place and saves him with his, Pierce’s, blood.

Pierce is a grumpy butt at first, as is James. James isn’t scared of the big and bad vampire at all, but he’s still eager to leave. What if the wolves find him? He couldn’t live with himself if he put anyone in danger, including the grumpy vampire.

The wolves do find him, and it takes both Pierce and James to get rid of them temporarily. After that is when the relationship between James and Pierce becomes an actual relationship. Every single thing in this book happens at warped speed. They’re attracted to each other, but neither wants to admit it. But then there’s a literal blood bond that changes everything.

They go from strangers, to lovers, to being mates and declaring their love to each other in less than 24 hours.

The end.

Okay, not quite. There’s a little more that happens in between the blood bond thing and the actual end. Those pesky werewolves have to be dealt with, after all.

Overall, the story was okay. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. I adored Pierce right off, but I never could get a good feel for James. There was just something about him that didn’t work for me.

I will say one thing that absolutely drove me crazy…. the italics. There were so many that they became distracting. I understand why they would be used occasionally, but this was way too much. It almost had me DNFing the book about a third of the way into the book. I’m kind of hesitant to start the next one for that reason. My first book of 2026 was a DNF. I don’t want to have a second one so early in the year.