Twilight Went to Boarding School, and Got Dangerous

If Twilight is a first crush, Crave is the messy, high-stakes relationship that follows. Tracy Wolff published this in 2020, and within a year it had become one of the most talked-about YA vampire series since Meyer's. The comparison is inevitable, but Crave earns its own identity.

What It's About

After the death of her parents, Grace Foster is sent to Katmere Academy, a remote boarding school in Alaska run by her uncle. Nothing about the place makes sense. The students are hostile. The weather is impossibly harsh. And Jaxon Vega (beautiful, terrifying, and treated like royalty by everyone) has taken an unsettling interest in her.

Grace is human. She shouldn't be here. And as she slowly uncovers what Katmere really is (a school for vampires, werewolves, witches, and dragons) she realizes that being human in this world isn't just unusual. It's dangerous.

What Works

Wolff nails the boarding school atmosphere: the politics, the factions, the claustrophobia of being trapped in a place where everyone knows more than you do. The Jaxon-Grace dynamic starts hostile and builds slowly, with Wolff resisting the urge to rush the connection.

At 592 pages, the book is long, but it uses that space to build a genuinely complex supernatural world with its own rules and power structures. The secondary characters (particularly Macy, Grace's cousin) are more than props.

What Doesn't

The Twilight parallels are hard to ignore in the first act: new girl, hostile vampire boy, small-town-replaced-by-boarding-school. If you're allergic to the formula, the first hundred pages will test you. The pacing drags in the middle, and some of the mystery reveals feel telegraphed.

But Wolff diverges sharply in the second half, and the series as a whole goes in directions Twilight never dared.

The Velvet Coven Verdict

Crave is for readers who loved the promise of Twilight but wanted sharper teeth. It's imperfect, it's long, and it knows exactly what it is: a six-book addiction designed to consume you. If you're in the mood to fall into a series and not come up for air, start here.

Content note: Violence, character death, themes of grief and loss.

Quick Reference

  • Author: Tracy Wolff
  • Published: 2020 (Entangled Teen)
  • Series: Crave Series, Book 1 (6 books)
  • Pages: 592
  • Setting: Katmere Academy, Alaska
  • Tropes: Boarding school, enemies to lovers, forbidden love, chosen one
  • Spice level: 1/5, slow burn, minimal heat