I don’t know if it’s just the ones I happen to pick, but every time I read an alien romance, I’m always surprised at how wholesome they feel despite all the smut. Each alien romance I’ve read has been a sweet, simple love story where the guy is super respectful and just wants to care for and protect the girl. The romance couples overcome small obstacles, have great sex, and live happily ever after in committed monogamous relationships. The end.
Sometime’s there’s not much to them plot wise, but they’re guaranteed to leave you smiling.
Space Vampire by Ruby Dixon is no exception to the pattern. This sexy, cozy, spooky-season read delivers the low stakes smut and smiles readers of alien romance will be expecting in their next escape. And just like a Halloween treat, it’s bite sized enough to devour in one night, and priced to match!
The Story
Human woman Dana has been abducted by aliens and is kept as a pet on a space station where her owner works in a lab splicing DNA to create clones for the aliens’ gladiator games. But when the alien scientists evacuate, Dana is left behind with defective clone Vlad, whose blood disorder gives him vampire-like traits.
When Dana realizes that Vlad is the reason her alien captors have fled, she agrees to feed him her blood if he will help her flee the station and offer protection as she travels in alien territory.
What I liked
Seventy-seven pages isn’t enough time for deep character development, but for what it was, I enjoyed the characters’ personalities. Dana is smart and resourceful and brave, and she’s funny and cute in an anime character sort of way. She just wants to eat noodles and pack as many yummy snacks as she can into the escape pod.
And have lots of great sex with Vlad, obviously.
My favourite part was when she found out the space station was abandoned and she decided to stick it to her alien captors by jumping on their beds.
The Spice
There’s one scene with descriptive foreplay and one descriptive sex scene. Which isn’t all that much sex for a romance novel, except when you consider what a huge percentage of the 77 page count that actually entails.
It’s basically all spice.
Even though Ruby Dixon uses a couple of my ick-list vocab words (“folds,” “mound,”) I still usually enjoy her sex scenes. Unlike some romance authors whose spicy scenes feel like medical textbook descriptions, Dixon knows how to weave emotional connection and tension in with the descriptions of what’s going on physically to create fully-realized emotional arcs to her romance scenes. This not only makes the scenes sexier, but also makes them feel like necessary parts of the love story as a whole.
Overall Thoughts
Ruby Dixon has gone from unknown self-pubber to NYT bestseller for a reason. She consistently delivers simple, cleanly-edited love stories with likable characters, quality smut, and happy endings.
If you don’t like descriptive sex scenes, if you’re looking for something beyond vanilla, or if you need a complex plot, don’t bother with this one. But for what it is, I really enjoyed this sweet, smutty short story. I recommend Space Vampire to romance lovers looking for a quick, cozy, one-day Halloween read.
This is why I love Ruby Dixon, the MMCs are masculine and tough- but without the toxicity that comes along with those traits. I find that in general alien romance is similar- the MMCs lack the toxicity that has become so common place on Earth 🙂
Non-toxic, that’s a perfect description! <3
Yes! It’s why this kind of alien romance is so good. Fed up with Earth and human men? End up on this planet/space station/ship; he may scare you at first but he’s just right 😀 Ruby Dixon is my go-to MF alien/monster comfort read.
Totally!