The Coldest Touch

By: Isabel Sterling

Narrated by: Katie Koster, Kristen DiMercurio

Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

“Vampires going to high school, but make it queer. Sterling delivers a fresh, thoughtful take on beloved paranormal tropes with a delightfully bloody romance.” (Mara Fitzgerald, author of Beyond the Ruby Veil)

From the author of These Witches Don't Burn comes another paranormal romance for fans of Richelle Mead and Stephenie Meyer.

Elise Beaumont is cursed. With every touch, she experiences exactly how her loved ones will die. And after her brother's death — a death she predicted but was unable to prevent — Elise is desperate to get rid of her terrible gift, no matter the cost.

Claire Montgomery also has a unique relationship with death, mostly because she’s already dead. Technically, anyway. Claire is a vampire, and she's been assigned by the Veil to help Elise master her rare Death Oracle powers.

At first, Elise is reluctant to work with a vampire, but when she predicts a teacher’s imminent murder, she's determined to stop the violent death, even if it means sacrificing her own future to secure Claire's help.

The trouble is, Claire and Elise aren't the only paranormals in town — a killer is stalking the streets, and Claire can't seem to shake the pull she feels toward Elise, a romance that could upend the Veil’s mission. But as Elise and Claire grow closer, Elise begins to wonder — can she really trust someone tasked with securing her loyalty? Someone who could so easily kill her? Someone who might hold the key to unraveling her brother's mysterious death.

©2021 Isabel Sterling (P)2021 Listening Library

Critic reviews

"Sterling raises the bar with this wonderfully sapphic paranormal romance! Both thrilling and heartfelt, The Coldest Touch is a brilliant addition to the world of vampire lit, sure to leave readers thirsty for more." (Jennifer Dugan, author of Hot Dog Girl and Some Girls Do)

“Vampires going to high school, but make it queer. Sterling delivers a fresh, thoughtful take on beloved paranormal tropes with a delightfully bloody romance.” (Mara Fitzgerald, author of Beyond the Ruby Veil)

"The characters’ rich backstories and authentic teen voices make this book an enjoyable ride through the genre." (SLJ)

A great story!

The author does a great job writing believable teenagers and a fascinating supernatural world.

Reads like Fanfiction...

Thin Character Development

With a story that drags and narrators who have only one tone to their voices, I'm finding this listen to be excruciatingly rough to finish. And a fair warning that some of this story won't seem important unless you read the other book to get some ground work of the world would have been nice.

One moderately better narrator may have be able to bring the story to life, but it really reads like maple syrup in winter.

The "Age gap" regardless of outwardly appearances, is odd and thinly veiled behind the whole, "turned earlier than was allowed" shtick. My teen heart this and my teen brain that is a poor way of trying to explain that she somehow thinks like a teen even though she's a grandmother by age alone and drinks blood from college aged females.. Odd.

That comment in Ch. 33 around 2 minutes and 7 seconds is freaking eye rolling. Jesus wept.

And finally - is there ever a LGB novel that doesn't need to reiterate the LGB party line? I feel like I'm getting a replayed sermon about my life style each and every time I read these novels...

Another Story Well Done

There is a style to Isabel Sterling that pulls me in and jars me at the same time. Her witch books were the same. This isn’t bad because I have now experienced her published books and find myself waiting for the next one. The grating part is the out of control teen and their emotions, and yet, that could be just a reflection of how I was as a teen that truly gets me.
This storyline was well done in the sense that it wasn’t all pink roses and petunias- there were some serious decisions to be made and losses where I thought YA books wouldn’t venture into.
Worth the read/listen.

Read/listen to this book, follow this author.

I've been waiting for this book for months. Not only do I love this author but I love both these narrators. It was fantastically done all around. Fun tidbit it was released on my birthday and it was the perfect present.

Anyway the character development and character arcs where the best part for this, though the plot and descriptive writing was done wonderfully too and the humor was well crafted and well placed.

I liked that Whiteness wasn't the default in this book, it really irritates me when authors only define the race of non-White characters as if whiteness should be assumed for everyone else.

I liked there being an non-binary character and that it wasn't something that was over explained. I loved that there was a bisexual guy, that almost never happens unless a is specifically book about m/m relationships and even then it's rare.

I do not generally read vampire novels. I was super into vampire fiction when I was a teenager longer ago than I want to think about, and since then I've avoided them, but I liked this take on them. The description of the book alone probably wouldn't have caught my attention had I not listened to another book by this author and been totally hooked on her writing.

Read/listen to this book, follow this author. Trust me it'll be worth it in every way.

Exactly what I wanted form a book

As a queer starved for representation who enjoys paranormal stories and vampires — this book was an absolute delight to listen to.
10/10 on character development, it was so easy to relate to not only the main characters, but to all characters. I keep trying to listen to small portions at a time to prolong the experience but it's really hard with the captivating story and easy to digest style.
The voice acting was on point, I really enjoyed being able to hear two perspectives with two different voices and every emotion was delivered to my brain exactly as it was intended to.

Great YA queer romance premise fell short for me

I thought this premise had a lot of potential. There could be a lot of angst caused by the age-gap between the leads, politics and intrigue in the supernatural world, interaction and adjustments made between the natural family and friends and the supernatural world, battles to avoid being controlled by the system, etc.

Unfortunately the author didn’t develop these ideas and conflicts. Instead it felt very flat and the characters didn’t seem to make choices that made sense for them in their situations. Tbh I actually shipped the lead and her BFF or even her original boyfriend more than I did with the vampire lead because of how poorly they handled the conflicts and development between the 2 of them. Also I felt like the vampire lead and the whole background supernatural government structure felt unfinished and hard to believe.

In the end though I can’t give a queer romance less than 3 stars because I want the author to succeed and keep improving as they write more.

Good vampire story

I liked this book. Seems like they left it open ended for another book. I’m glad about that.

Good Story

The performance was amazing. The story was pretty good. It's the usual vampire story but queer and I love that. I gave it a four because I feel like it went with the usual tropes and I feel as though there could have been more surprise elements. The characters were written well too.

hope the author makes this a series.

I really enjoyed the story as a whole. definitely set up for more books and I'm looking forward to it. I'm really invested in the characters, love the romance its very cute, but now I'm super invested in the world in general. there's some interesting lore here and I can't wait for it to be expanded on.
two main characters can be hard to balance sometimes but I like how this particular author structured it. it felt like it made sense in this story. if you like vampires/magical worlds and your looking for something more queer I highly recommend.

How Could You Trust a Dead Girl?

It was okay. I was expecting more because of how much hype this book got online. There were aspects of the vampire lore that was different and made for a more interesting story. I didn’t really care about the whole death oracle storyline even though that was the MAIN storyline. It’s worth listening to once but it’s not really something I’ll find myself coming back to.