Fan Service by Rosie Danan Review

The truth is stranger than fan fiction in the new sexy, paranormal romcom from the bestselling author of The Roommate and The Intimacy Experiment.
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The only place small-town outcast Alex Lawson fits in is the online fan forum she built for Arcane, a long-running werewolf detective show. Her dedication to archiving fictional supernatural lore made her Internet-famous, even if she harbors a secret disdain for the show's star, Devin Ashwood. (Never meet your heroes - sometimes they turn out to be The Worst.)
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Ever since his show went off the air, Devin and his career have spiralled, but waking up naked in the woods outside his LA home with no memory of the night before is a new low. It must have been a coincidence that the once-in-a-century Wolf Blood Moon crested last night. The claws, fangs, and howling are a little more difficult to explain away. Desperate for answers, Devin finds Alex - the closest thing to an expert that exists. If only he could convince her to stop hating his guts long enough to help . . .
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Once he makes her an offer she can't refuse, these reluctant allies lower their guards trying to wrangle his inner beast. Unfortunately, getting up close and personal quickly comes back to bite them.

Fandom culture, celebrity woes, teen heartthrob shows, and nerd-inspired paranormal romance, Fan Service by Rose Danan is a romance novel that’s both light-heartedly fun and relatably honest. Featuring a great premise and a very likable and wholesome FMC, this book is an easy and enjoyable read that smartly incorporates many popular romance tropes while also striving to do more through great queer representation and light socio-political commentary. Despite some reservations with its less impressive portrayal of its MMC and perhaps failing to do more with its compelling story, Fan Service is an otherwise safe and easy romance read with a nice geeky and quirky spin.

I will be the first to admit that I’m quite an inexperienced reader when it comes to paranormal romance, this being one of my few forays into the genre and adjacent stories. That said, Fan Service initially caught my eye thanks to its premise of a former teen heartthrob actor teaming up with a jaded yet hardcore life-long fan set around an original tv-show that’s not so subtly inspired by the CW/MTV shows of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This book is perfectly pitched for millennial readers who grew up during the community forums, tumblr, and the general online fandom era, with its original in-lore show The Arcane Files pulling elements from Buffy, Teen Wolf, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, and other IPs of the time. The book’s portrayal and references to online fandom culture are easily one of its biggest strengths that goes beyond what can be researched or emulated, Danan clearly being very familiar with the community or maybe even part of it herself. Fan Service is full of fun references like shipping of tv show’s MMCs, online fandom friends, celebrity gossip, and more. As expected, there’s other Easter eggs and homages throughout the book that may not necessarily resonate with older or gen Z and younger romance readers, but millennials are in for a great time.

The book’s good grasp on its narrative material and relatability also extends to its FMC Alex Lawson who is incredibly likable and easy to root for. Ostracized as a teenager for being weird, goth, and nerdy in school as well as in her community due to her father’s affiliation with environmental conservation and wolf wildlife protection, she has adopted a rough black cat-style exterior protecting a more sensitive and caring personality. Like the book, her character wonderfully embodies all of the highs and lows of being a hardcore supernatural/fantasy fan both in limited flashbacks of her teenage years as well as in the present as a grown-up thirty-five-year-old vet tech. Her friendship with fellow Arcane Files fans, her past as “the Mod” of the wiki community, and how the show shaped who she is as an adult are well done, further cementing the book’s target of 30’s and up millennial readers. The young fan inside never really dies or goes away despite us growing older, and her evolving relationship with her favorite tv-show, actor, and community shows that the book strives to be more than merely a simple hot werewolf shifter paranormal romance story.

Outside of the tv-show and fandom elements, Fan Service also includes quite a few other interesting narrative topics that expand its story. While initially a bit on the nose, Alex and her father’s connection to wolf conservation and wildlife advocacy not only serve as a plot mechanism to explain her affinity to animals and, well, wolf behaviors, but also serves as a foil to Florida’s famed horse racing industry and popularity. Given its setting, the book also touches on some of the conservative politics and societal views of the state’s more rural areas through the affluent’s dominance in town, threats of book banning, and the rejection of queer youths. While surprisingly not mentioned in its marketing or synopsis, the book has unexpectedly good queer representation through Alex’s devotion and volunteering at the local community center’s queer youth mentoring program with Rowen who is non-binary. The book also has bits of bi representation through Alex, and both the fandom and Arcane Files’s producer debating on its fictional werewolf lead Colby’s shipping/queerbaiting dynamic with the show’s popular male vampire character (is this vague reference to Edward and Jacob fanfics? Or Being Human?). While not officially tagged or classified as such, its good representation, bi FMC, and discussions about the media industry is enough where I would consider it an LGBTQ+ book or at least an adjacent one at that.

While I applauded and appreciated Fan Service’s thoughtful story around fandom culture and its good characterization and development in Alex, where the book stumbled was with the other half of the book and its portrayal of actor Devin Ashwood. His character has great narrative material to work with on paper that such a loveless childhood with parents only focused on industry success, social media celebrity scrutiny, jealousy of success, being past one’s prime, and isolation that nicely mirrors and contrasts Alex’s own ostracization. As a character, Devin is a mix of an almost golden retriever himbo with hot-blooded LA shallowness, intentionally flawed to be grounded by Alex and for character growth potential. While the ideas behind his character and story are good, I found his POV to be less impressive in terms of execution. Where Alex’s POV and character narration felt very relatable, earnest, and appealing, Devin’s POV feels like it cycles between constantly being overly protective and horny for Alex or lamenting about his life in an adult pity party. I personally found his portrayal to be quite lacking, often feeling like a caricature of an adult male character especially in the way he lusts over her that is quite crude and heavy-handed to the point of being unintentionally comical. I don’t like stereotyping or associated an author’s gender with character writing, but Devin really felt like he was written by a female author that’s unaware with how a lot of guys think. Additionally, his character is meant to be a forty-two-year-old man, yet his portrayal comes off closer to one in their mid to late 20’s, early 30’s at most. The narration often feels juvenile and certain scenes don’t really make sense for a single divorced man (a scene where he doesn’t know menstrual cramps are a thing or signs of the cycle really stretch the believability). Some readers may also find his character to be overly whining and immature to the point that it compromises the romance. I understand that Danan likely wanted the age gap for the trope, to make the teenage crush/celebrity concept work, and to hit the hunky aging/slightly graying appeal for millennial readers, but there’s a notable disconnect with the character writing.

Another area I was left a bit underwhelmed by was the book’s last third where I felt like it didn’t make the most of its premise from a plot perspective. While certain parts such as the “trials” Alex and Devin conduct adapted from the Arcane Files are a bit silly and some of the book’s peripheral elements sometimes veering off-topic, Fan Service otherwise has a pretty good pacing and balance of the paranormal shifting storyline with the fandom/celebrity interaction development. For me though, the often expected third act breakup and subsequent reconciliation went in an unexpected direction that I found quite goofy. This is a light-hearted and fun romance book so I wasn’t necessarily expecting a dramatic and emotional climax, but while the conclusion had a unique twist on the werewolf shifting concept, I found it to be a bit of a letdown to what was an otherwise competent book. Some of the interesting elements previously covered like the dark side of competitive horse racing, wolf conservation, and community involvement also feel like they weren’t quite resolved or explored enough or alternatively, were a bit off-topic and unfocused.

Marketed as a paranormal romance covering fandom culture and supernatural elements, by that metric Fan Service is a resounding success! Relatable, witty, and accurate, its late 90’s and early 2000’s homages are great as well as its celebrity x fan romance pairing. Unfortunately, Devin’s half of the book isn’t handled with the same level of nuance or skill to the point where I would’ve preferred if the book were written solely from Alex’s POV despite the premise likely requiring both character’s perspectives to work; individually I would’ve rated Alex’s half of the book 4.0-4.5 stars while Devin’s 2.5-3.0. However, despite some notable issues with its MMC’s portrayal and a few subjective narrative elements, I still found Fan Service to be a fun and affectionately quirky romance read that’s worth picking up for anyone that finds its premise intriguing.