City by Night

City by Night is a wonderful novella that looks at the complexities of the relationships between people and the media they consume, the psychology of fandom, and sexy vampires. Frey begins the story with a fannish professional, Mary, who gets what many a young nerd would consider a dream job - PA on her favourite TV series. Even better, she ends up being transported into the world of the show, meeting the characters and becoming an integral part of their world. This story might sound familiar, especially to anyone that's read any amount of fanfiction, and that's intentional. Frey reveals in the intro that she wrote this story with the intention of analyzing the tropes of fanfiction and fan culture, and she accomplishes that fully.

For readers that don't interact with those elements of culture, this is still a worthwhile read. Frey's interweaves also works well as a parable about the perils of getting what you want in life, and how underwhelming that can be. Mary's coming to terms with her fandom and the limitations of fictional worlds are something that all readers should be able to connect to.