Crave

I picked up Crave because I kept seeing it next to vampire romances at the store and I wanted to know why this one stuck around. Tracy Wolff published it with Entangled: Teen in 2020, a 592 page young adult novel that opens the Crave series. It follows Grace Foster, seventeen, from San Diego, after both of her parents die in a car crash. She has to move to Alaska to live with her uncle and finish school at a strange castle academy. I expected a quick boarding school romance with fangs. What I got was longer and messier, with grief sitting right beside the love story, and a school where every friend might be hiding teeth or wings.

Grace narrates in first person and she sounds tired in the way grief makes you tired. She loved her parents and her old life near the beach. She surfed, she had friends, she knew how her days worked. Then one crash takes that away. She does not get time to adjust. She flies north in winter to Fairbanks to stay with Uncle Finn, who runs Katmere Academy, and his daughter Macy, her cousin. Grace keeps saying she is fine when she is not. She forgets to eat. She cries in private. She tries to act normal in classes while her chest feels tight. Wolff does this part well. Grief is not a speech here. It shows in small choices, like Grace holding onto her phone with old photos, or avoiding talk about college plans she made with her mom and dad.

After San Diego

The move itself feels like a second loss. San Diego means sun and noise and friends who knew her since she was small. Alaska means dark early, snow piled high, air that hurts to breathe at first. Grace arrives worn out and a little sick from altitude and travel. She worries she will be behind in school. She worries she will be a burden on Finn and Macy. Finn is kind but busy. He runs a whole school and he clearly cares, yet he is often called away. Macy tries to fill the gap. She is warm, funny, into fashion in a way Grace finds both odd and comforting. Macy lends clothes, shows her around, tells her who sits with whom. That cousin bond gives Grace her first steady footing.

Katmere Academy looks wrong from the road in a way Grace notices right away. It is not a brick box with a flag. It is a Gothic castle with tall walls and stone figures fixed near the roof. Grace thinks of old monster movies when she sees them. She tried to search the school online before she came and found almost nothing, which adds to the unease. Inside it is grand and cold, with wide stairs, heavy doors, and halls that seem to go on too far. Students stare. Some are friendly. Some are openly hostile. Grace feels like the new kid in a place where everyone else learned the rules years ago.

Early days bring small harms that pile up. Grace feels dizzy and short of breath. Her head pounds. She twists her ankle badly during a snowball fight and has to limp around while others seem fine in the cold. She tells herself this is stress plus weather plus grief. Part of me believed her while I read, because moving after a death can make your body fall apart. Still, the accidents keep coming at a rate that stops feeling normal. Two boys grab her one night and drag her out into the freezing dark. She is terrified and sure she will freeze or worse. Someone steps in and saves her, though she does not see clearly who it was. She shakes for hours after. Finn increases watch around her, but answers stay vague.

Katmere Academy in Alaska

What slowly becomes clear is that Katmere is not a normal prep school. It houses teens from hidden groups who live alongside humans in secret. There are witches like Macy, vampires, wolf shifters, and dragon shifters. They keep a fragile peace through rules and shared classes and a strict headmaster. As the only human student, Grace stands out in every sense. She smells different. She tires faster. She does not know the signs. Other students know at once what she is, or what they think she is, and some resent her presence.

The social map helps Grace survive once she starts to read it. Macy explains cliques and cautions her about staring. Flint, a friendly and handsome dragon shifter, takes her under his wing in a brotherly way. He walks her to class, jokes with her, sits with her at meals. He seems safe when so much else feels sharp. There is also a tight group called the Order, students in dark clothes who move together and watch others. They give off power and boredom in equal parts. Grace learns to keep her head down around them, but she cannot stop watching one member in particular.

Classes themselves add texture. The school demands real work despite the snow and drama. Grace has makeup assignments from the transfer. She eats brown sugar Pop-Tarts in the cafeteria while vampire students drink elk blood supplied by the school. That image stayed with me because it is so plain. No grand feast. Just teens with trays, some with pastries, some with blood, talking about homework. Teachers push hard. Hallways are drafty. The library is huge and quiet, the kind of room where whispers carry. Grace goes there to study and to hide, and that is where she meets Lia.

Jaxon Vega

Jaxon Vega is the boy Grace cannot leave alone. He is a vampire, old in years though he looks like a teen, heir to the Vampire Kingdom, and known across campus as dangerous. He has dark hair, a scar that cuts from his eyebrow toward his mouth, and a habit of appearing and vanishing without noise. The first time Grace meets him properly, he is rude on purpose. He tells her she will not like it here. He tells her to leave. He tries to scare her off with cold stares and short answers. Grace feels pulled toward him anyway. She notices the anger in him and also the pain under it.

Their early scenes follow a push and pull pattern that will feel familiar if you have read a lot of paranormal romance. He saves her, then denies he cares. She asks questions, he shuts her down. He shows up when she is in danger, then disappears for days. Grace daydreams about him to get through dull classes and lonely nights. I found those chapters both fun and frustrating. Fun because Wolff writes attraction with a light touch, all held glances and accidental touches in narrow halls. Frustrating because Jaxon withholds basic safety info while expecting Grace to trust him.

Powers make his moods literal. Jaxon has telekinesis. He can move objects with thought. When his control slips, small quakes shake the ground near him. Pictures rattle. Windows crack. Grace starts to link the tremors to his presence before anyone explains it to her. At one point a window breaks above her and glass rains down, and only luck keeps her alive. Macy sees how close it was and decides Grace needs truth more than shelter. That cafeteria scare becomes a turning point. Jaxon later confronts a group of wolf shifters he believes hurt Grace. He nearly kills their leader and stops only when Grace begs him to hold back. The scene shows both why students fear him and why Grace trusts him. He is strong enough to end a fight in seconds, yet he listens when she speaks.

His past explains some of the walls. His brother Hudson Vega is dead, or so everyone says. Hudson could press his will into other minds and bend people to obey. He wanted to place vampires above all other groups, by force if needed. Jaxon fought him to stop that plan and killed him. Their mother blames Jaxon for the loss. Lia, who loved Hudson, lost her partner and her place in that family story. Jaxon carries guilt that never quite leaves. He has not allowed himself to feel much for a long time. Grace cracks that numb state open, which scares him as much as it steadies him.

Lia and the library

Lia first seems like a possible friend. Grace finds her in the library speaking softly in another tongue over a strange book. She is lovely and sad, polite in a formal way. She tells Grace she dated Hudson until his death the prior school year. They bond over loss. Grace lost parents. Lia lost a boyfriend and a future she had mapped out. They drink tea together. They talk about Jaxon. Lia warns Grace in soft terms while also feeding her curiosity. I liked these scenes at first because they gave Grace another girl to talk to besides Macy, someone who knew Jaxon from before.

Small wrong notes build around Lia if you watch closely. She knows too much about Grace movements. She appears where Grace happens to be. She asks pointed questions about Jaxon and Grace closeness, about dreams, about blood, about whether Grace feels different since arriving. She frames it as care. She says she wants to help Grace adjust to dating a vampire. At the same time, Flint acts odd in ways Grace tries to excuse. He is warm, then distant. He pushes her to be careful, then pulls back when she asks why. Grace wants to believe both of them because she is lonely and new. She tells herself she is reading too much into tired faces.

Macy finally tells Grace the plain truth about Katmere because the accidents will not stop. You are the only human here, she says in effect. Your roommate is a witch. Your friend Flint shifts into a dragon. Jaxon and Lia are vampires. The wolves who grabbed you that night were wolf shifters testing you. Once Grace hears it laid out, earlier scenes click into place. The stares make sense. The blood on trays makes sense. The quakes near Jaxon make sense. Grace feels foolish and angry and relieved at once. Foolish for missing signs. Angry that Finn and Macy waited so long. Relieved that she is not losing her mind.

Learning the rules does not make Grace safe. If anything, it shows her how exposed she has been. Vampires need blood and can lose control. Wolves run in packs and hold grudges. Dragons guard their own and answer insult with fire. Witches work spells that cost energy and demand focus. Humans break easily beside all that. Grace starts to ask better questions. Who attacked her that first night and why. Why Flint watches her so closely. Why Lia keeps offering tea and sympathy. Why Jaxon keeps saying they cannot be together while refusing to stay away.

Secrets and blood

The middle of the book lives in that tense space where Grace knows enough to be afraid but not enough to act. She and Jaxon grow closer despite warnings from almost everyone. He teaches her small ways to stay safe without making her feel weak. He walks her back after dark. He checks her ankle. He explains vampire limits, such as why they drink animal blood at school and why fresh human blood hits harder. He admits he wants her blood and hates that he does. Grace admits she is scared and stays anyway. Their talks helped me accept the romance more than the rescues did. When they argue about risk, both make fair points. He says nearness puts her in danger. She says leaving her in the dark puts her in more danger.

Flint stays near through this stretch, and Wolff uses him to show how pack loyalty can twist friendship. He clearly likes Grace. He also answers to older dragons who see humans as soft and short lived. He warns her off dark halls. He shows up fast when she screams. Yet he holds back facts about Lia and Hudson that could have helped her sooner. I read him as torn rather than cruel for most of the book. He wants to protect Grace and his own people at once, and those aims stop fitting together as Lia moves.

Lia plays a longer game. She tells Grace that she and Jaxon might be mates, people bound by blood and fate in vampire lore. The idea thrills Grace and worries her. If true, it would explain the pull she feels, the way Jaxon finds her across campus, the way her pulse jumps when he is near. It would also paint a target on her back, since a mate can be used to hurt a powerful vampire. Grace does not know what to believe. Jaxon neither confirms nor denies it at first, which only feeds her doubt. Macy urges caution. She likes Jaxon no more than she trusts Lia, and she tells Grace to slow down and watch actions more than words.

Fair criticism belongs here because this section repeats a loop. Grace nearly dies, Jaxon saves her, they fight about distance, they make up, she nearly dies again. The cafeteria glass, the wolf clash, dizzy spells on stairs, a fall here, a fever there. After the third or fourth scare, I started to skim the rescue and wait for the talk after. Some readers will enjoy the steady danger as proof of love. I wanted more school life between scares to let the bond grow through normal days. We get flashes of that, jokes over homework, a walk outside with hot chocolate while Jaxon sticks to blood and water, but fear keeps cutting in.

Another honest note is how much Grace excuses. Jaxon can be harsh. He orders her around for her own good. He leaves without word and returns expecting welcome. Grace calls him out at times, which I liked, but she also forgives fast because attraction runs high. Readers who want firm boundaries from page one may find her patience wearing. I found it true to seventeen, especially for a grieving teen desperate to feel chosen again, but it still slowed my trust in him as a partner.

Poisoned tea and the tunnels

The plot turns hard when Lia invites Grace for tea and laces the drink with a strong sedative. Grace feels heavy and strange, then blacks out. She wakes bound and confused in the maze of tunnels below Katmere, stone walls sweating cold, air thin. Lia drops the kind mask. She says Grace is not simply human. She says Grace and Jaxon are mates. She says she needs Grace blood and death in a rite to bring Hudson back. Grace thinks at first this must be grief talking. Then Lia starts the working, smoke coiling thick and black, chant rising, and Grace understands Lia means every word.

What follows is crowded and fast. Jaxon and Flint break in. Flint admits what he has hidden. He and other dragon shifters have been trying to kill Grace since she arrived, not from hate but to block Lia. If Grace dies before the rite, Hudson cannot return through her. It is a cold math that horrifies Grace even as she sees the logic. Jaxon refuses that math. He will not trade Grace to stop his brother. Flint and Jaxon fight each other as well as Lia, fire and force shaking dust from the ceiling. Lia calls smoke that burns and chokes. Jaxon uses his power to shape a hollow in the air, pulling the smoke into a tight ball, then hurls it back at her. Lia thanks him softly as it hits, as if death frees her from a weight she could no longer carry, then she breaks apart into ash and dust.

Jaxon comes out hurt and weak. Grace cuts her own arm and offers blood. He drinks, then takes too much before he can stop. Grace fades as her heart pounds in her ears. Both hover near death in a way that scared me more than the rite did, because it comes from need rather than hate. They survive and wake in the infirmary two days later under Nurse Alma care, with Dr. Veracruz checking charts. Jaxon has not left her side. He looks worn and ashamed. He says they should end it because he almost drained her. Grace refuses. She says she chooses him with clear eyes. They say they love each other for the first time without a monster at the door. For a brief stretch, calm returns. Homework piles up. The Order keeps distance. Grace and Jaxon share small jokes. She wonders about mates but lets the question rest.

Ending twist

Calm breaks in a single breath. Black smoke coils on the school grounds while Grace and Jaxon walk between classes. Hudson Vega steps out of it, alive in some form, holding a broadsword aimed at Jaxon head. Grace does not think. She pulls Jaxon toward her and puts her body in the path. The sword falls. The point of view shifts to Jaxon as steel meets skin that is no longer skin.

Grace turns to stone on impact. Her limbs lock. Her face sets. The blade fails to cut through. Jaxon catches her rigid form and shouts for help. Finn arrives with Dr. Veracruz and Amka, another staff member who knows old lore. They tell Jaxon what Grace is. She is a gargoyle, a rare shifter type who can harden flesh into rock. She did it by instinct to shield Jaxon. Gargoyles can shift back at will, they say, so she should return when ready. Jaxon cannot accept that. He paces, begs, accuses Hudson of holding her in place. He vows to free her or die trying. The book ends on that vow, with Grace still and silent in stone and Jaxon frantic beside her.

I admired the nerve of that close even as it frustrated me. Wolff hides the answer in plain sight from the first castle description. Stone figures on the roof. A girl who feels heavy and cold when scared. A human who survives falls that should have killed her. Bruises that fade too fast. The reveal reframes those hints and gives Grace power that fits her character. She endures. She shields others. Stone suits her better than speed or bite would. Still, as an ending it is a hard stop rather than a rest. Questions about Hudson return, about what Lia actually raised, about why Finn brought a gargoyle girl to a school that thought her human, all wait for book two. Readers who need a closed arc will feel cheated. Readers who like a hook will turn the page at once.

A few more faults worth naming so you can decide if this is for you. The book is long and it feels it in the middle, with classes and crush talk stretching between attacks. The love triangle edges with Flint never quite catch fire, since Flint reads more like a brother. The vampire politics get sketched more than shown, with a kingdom off page and rules explained in talks rather than scenes. Comparisons to earlier vampire school books will pop up in your head, and Wolff does not dodge them so much as lean in with more species and higher stakes. If you want spare prose or strict logic about how powers work, this will test you. If you want big feeling, snow, blood, and a heroine who keeps standing up after every hit, it delivers.

Who should read it. Teens and adults who like paranormal romance with a school setting, fated mates, and a slow reveal about what the heroine is. Readers who need steady consent talk should know Jaxon and Grace push at limits in ways the book frames as passion, and side characters face real harm. Readers sensitive to grief and blood should pace themselves, since Grace mourns through the whole book and late chapters bring poison, cuts, and feeding in detail. I finished glad I stayed, mostly for Grace. She starts as the lone mortal in a castle full of old powers and ends as something older and stronger than they guessed. I want book two to earn that shift by letting her train and choose, not just be fought over. For a 592 page opener from 2020, Crave gives you a full winter of trouble and a final image I will not forget soon, a girl turned to rock to save the boy she loves, waiting in the infirmary while he keeps watch.