Beyond romance: exploring love and friendship in “The Last Vampire”
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Join us on Thursday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m. ET for our next charla with author Romina Garber, featuring a live reading and Q&A. RSVP for the charla.
“The Last Vampire” by Romina Garber is part paranormal romance, part boarding-school mystery. Lorena is the daughter of famous parenting influencer Viviana Navarro and has spent her life under her mother’s strict rules. After a viral party video of herself damages her mother’s career, Lorena is ready to start over. Thus, she begins her senior year at the newly-opened Huntington Academy in New Hampshire with her best friend Salma.
Contrary to what the party video might’ve suggested, Lorena is a bookish, principled 18-year-old who spends her life trying to please others rather than making choices for herself. She is loyal, especially to Salma, but sometimes that loyalty makes her too protective and prompts her to try to make decisions for the people she loves. She isn’t always quick to speak her mind, but she’s willing to stand up for what she believes in – no matter the cost.
After sneaking into a forbidden wing of the academy, Lorena, Salma and their new friends find a coffin and accidentally wake William Pride, a vampire who had been asleep since 1769. Everyone escapes, except for Lorena who is caught by William and drinks her blood. Biting Lorena does not kill her but rather bonds her to William as his familiar, a trustworthy human who supplies blood to their vampire.
The world William wakes up to is nothing like the one he remembers. History seems to have forgotten his kind; he might be the only vampire left in existence. To learn about the modern world, he pretends to be a human and enrolls at Huntington Academy. With Lorena’s help and blood, William looks to uncover the mystery behind what happened to the vampires and his own family.
The novel’s drama and romance may remind readers of Elena Gilbert and Damon Salvatore’s relationship in the TV series, “The Vampire Diaries,” but “The Last Vampire” is more rooted in traditional vampire fiction. It incorporates elements of gothic romance: attraction mixed with fear, mysterious atmospheres and a sense of reverence for the literary tradition.
Lorena is drawn to William from the start. She compares his portrait to Mr. Darcy from “Pride and Prejudice” before she knows he’s a vampire. Even when he’s terrifying her and forcing her to obey him, his seductive voice and striking appearance catch Lorena’s attention. This mix of attraction and danger is central to gothic romance and vampire stories like “Dracula,” which “The Last Vampire” also references.
Despite feeling drawn to William, the two don’t immediately fall for each other. Their relationship is built on mutual distrust, threats and his mistreatment of Lorena. William views his relationship with Lorena as transactional at first. Because he sees himself as a heartless monster to suppress his human emotions and excuse his crueler actions, he doesn’t hesitate to attack Lorena when they meet, drinking her blood in order to survive. He even threatens to kill her friends if she doesn’t help him hide his identity. Bucking her people-pleasing nature, she tries blackmailing William into leaving Huntington Academy by secretly recording him while he drinks from her. Though they eventually agree to maintain their familiar bond and help each other, their arrangement remains coercive.
Books are what eventually give them a common ground. Their debates about “Pride and Prejudice,” “Jane Eyre” and “Dracula” become a way to understand each other; banter soon turns into flirtation. Through small gestures, arguments and reconciliations, their bond deepens. But even so, their differences and power imbalances make the relationship develop unevenly.
The story also uses language to show the differences between Lorena and William. Lorena narrates in modern first-person while William’s third-person voice is formal and unambiguous, fitting for someone born in the 1700s. He lets her in slowly and reluctantly. Lorena, who has always struggled to stand up for herself, has to decide over and over again to stand beside William and his choices. Eventually, they each learn something important from one another. William convinces Lorena her voice matters. She reminds him that he still has a heart deep inside.
As they learn to maneuver through their developing relationship and secrets, William discovers he is a Stoker, the only vampire bloodline able to turn humans. Since he may be the last hope for vampires to return, he is forced to choose between saving his own species or Lorena and the humans he has come to care about.
The story also explores another form of love through Lorena’s friendship with her adventurous best friend Salma. Born on the same day, they have been inseparable since childhood. Salma is bold and impulsive, a goth who loves the occult and has always believed vampires and ghosts are real. Lorena is cautious and keeps Samla safe when she puts herself at risk. They’ve supported each other through thick and thin, including the recent passing of Salma’s mother, who died from a rare autoimmune disease. When Salma is diagnosed with the same disease, she begins to privately fear for her own health.
Keeping William’s identity a secret becomes a stressor for Lorena and Salma’s friendship. Even though he threatened her friends to make Lorena cover for him, her real reason for agreeing is Salma. She’s convinced Salma’s obsession with finding proof of the supernatural world would put her in danger from William. So she lies to Salma for months, telling herself it will protect her friend. When Salma finally learns the truth, what hurts her is not that vampires exist but that Lorena decided she couldn’t handle it.
“You found what I’ve always searched for, and you kept it from me,” says Salma on page 194.
The same pattern of betrayal returns when Salma reveals that her illness has advanced and she is dying. She asks William to turn her into a vampire, but Lorena cannot bear to lose her. Yet again, she decides for Salma what is best and tries to stop her. Even if Lorena has no real say in the matter, Salma’s anger towards her is visceral. The pain they unintentionally cause one another is just as intense as the love and care they have always shared.
Lorena’s love for Salma matches her fear of losing her, but she must accept she can’t always protect her friend. In the end, they apologize to each other and share a small grin. For Lorena, this platonic love can be just as intense and moving as romantic love.
Garber’s exploration of love and choice manages to balance both humans and vampires. Each side has their flaws, and the story never makes it easy to decide whose actions are right. Vampires seek to dominate humanity, while humans have long fought to eradicate the vampire race, fueling an age-old struggle between the two. For William, who must choose between restoring the vampire species and spending his remaining years with Lorena, the conflict between his duty to his kind and his love for her becomes deeply personal.
“The Last Vampire” is more than just a young adult romance. Weaving together drama, betrayal and raw emotions, this novel is a thrilling read for those who adore both romantic and platonic forms of love.
— Written by Stefanny Leung Yu
— Copy edited by Alexis Mackenzie and Valerie Izquierdo
Stefanny Leung Yu is based in New York City and graduated from Queens College. She is currently a Special Projects Fellow at Hola Cultura. With a creative mindset and a passion for storytelling, she values the power of community and how shared experiences come together to shape meaningful narratives.
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