Delicious Monsters wrecked me in the best way. Going in, I thought I was just reading a YA haunted house book, but it was so much more.

The book follows two Black girls in Ontario, Canada. We meet Brittney in present day, who runs a web series focused on hauntings. She’s investigating the story of Daisy, a teen girl a decade earlier, and what happened to Daisy after she moves from Toronto to a supposedly haunted house on an island in Timmins, Ontario.  

The majority of the book is Daisy’s story, with Brittney’s documentary working as a framing device and to echo the major themes of the book.  The haunting aspect is wonderfully done, with some very weird and creepy “rules” to the afterlife and related magic. But the story is also about how Black girls go missing without the world caring, about trauma that is passed down through generations, and about the relationships between daughters and mothers.

The story and characters are twisty and complex, and the plot and motivation had me guessing throughout. I was a big fan of Sambury’s Blood Like Magic/Blood Like Fate duology, but this book is even better. 

Sambury’s writing is so fresh and unexpected, and Delicious Monsters is creepy, funny, thoughtful and heartbreaking all at once. I adored it.

I’d recommend checking out the trigger warning for this one, it’s classed as YA but there’s some tough material particularly around abusive relationships. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for my review copy of this book.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada and Netgalley for this ARC!!!

Daisy would like to be an average teenager, just easing through her senior year of school and hanging out with her college-aged boyfriend. However, that was never a possibility for her. Daisy can see the dead, and after a steep learning curve and some harrowing experiences, she learns to navigate the myriad of dead that she sees every day and learns how to control her interactions with them. Just when she feels that she has a bit of control in her life, her mother presents her with an interesting opportunity: living in the home of the "brother-in-law" that raised her. Her mother, Grace wants to turn the house into a bed and breakfast as it exists on a beautiful lake with very scenic views, but the house is harboring some dark secrets.

10 years after Daisy and Grace move into the house, Brittany and Jayden pitch a show for Forgotten Black Girls for their web series and the house is number one on their list. Deciding to see if there is any truth to the rumors, the pair set out to discover what happened to Daisy and why the house seems to have an aura of death and foreboding following it, despite the overwhelming numbers of people that choose to visit it.

I'm beginning to believe that Liselle Sambury may just be my new favorite author. Her first two books, Blood like Magic and Blood Like Fate, were two books that I found that I could not put down the entire time that I read them and Delicious Monsters is the same. The book tackles some serious subject matter, namely generational trauma and the phenomenon that the media has a tendency to shut out missing Black cis and trans girls in favor of young, beautiful white girls who go missing. It also tackles other intense themes such as intimate partner violence, teen pregnancy, child abuse, and other topics while under the guise of being a haunted house thriller. And thriller it truly is. This book had me eagerly flipping from page to page to explore what happens to Daisy and Brittany's quest to come to terms with what Daisy went through while attempting to reconcile her mother's behavior in a so-called "Miracle House".

There also is a strong theme of mother-daughter-grandmother relations running through this book and they often hit home, with Daisy not having a good relationship with her mother and that's a result of Grace not having much of a relationship with her mother, which is a bit of the core of the problems in this book. Brittany also struggles with her mother's celebrity and the persona her mother puts on to the world, sharing their trauma while being manipulative and deceitful to her daughter. And that's in addition to her being a bit fatphobic.

Fair warning: as I said, this book deals with some intense subject matter and Sambury graciously provides the reader with some well-placed sensitivity warnings before the story even begins, but even I found myself crying because of how emotionally heavy this book was. But that's the thing: the burdens that we Black girls and women agonize under tend to be intense and we often struggle and suffer under the weight of abuse, neglect, and general dislike while always being forced to put on a show for audiences, whether they be major audiences or just the family we're around every day. We're always forced to be seen as strong, but never as worthy of being protected in life and are often forgotten and ignored during death. This book sheds a lot of light on this and gives a glowing view of how it's a myriad of things that build us up into the people that we become.

If you're looking for a simple thriller/haunted house story, I suggest other books by other authors that aren't as intense but will leave you with a good sense of the heebie jeebies. But if you're looking for some authentic Black girl magic and unpacking generational trauma, as well as dealing with the things that go on behind closed doors and are absorbed into the very walls of the house, I highly recommend this book. It's my favorite type of psychological horror and this story has stuck with me long after I closed its pages.

O M G! This book was everything and MORE. I absolutely absolutely loved it I cannot even express how much. People always say it's harder to write reviews for books that you loved, and I agree. I have read all of Liselle's book and ao far this is my favorite! The vibes were eerie and mysterious but also dark and heavy. We have two point of view, 10 year appart from one another, the first one is Daisy. She can see ghost and move into what looks like to be a haunted house, while being haunted by her past as well. She doesn't have the best relationship with her mom, who she finds out she knows less and less as time go. Then we have Brittney, 10 years later who is doing a documentary on the house ans all of the horrible things that have happened within. She also have a less than good relationship with her mother and finds herself comparing that to Daisy's. Ok i am not the best at writting summaries but TRUST ME, this book is a page turner! You won't see the twist coming and you're going to feel all the emotions as they unfold. They are some heavy topics in this books that are mentionned at the beginning and I love that, but I also recommend that you read them before picking up the book.
The characters are well developped and continue to evolve throughout the book, we have true crime but paranormal stuff too, haunted house, creepy forest, eerie scenery and maggots, lots of maggots.
I don't know how to convince people to read this book with my word, so I'll just scream about it for the next months and I will definetly re-read it once I buy my own copy!
Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for this amazing e-arc!

Delicious Monsters is a, well, delicious piece of Canadian #ownvoices horror, perfect for fans of Tannarive Due and Helen Oyeyemi. It definitely skews teen (naturally, as it is a YA novel) and Daisy's sections of the book dragged a bit for me - I think knowing early on what happened to her made the slow creep seem slower - but both she and Brittney were deeply compelling, sympathetic narrators. I would absolutely recommend this to YA readers.

Delicious Monsters was deliciously creepy. There is a haunted house, ghosts, gore, everything I love in a horror/thriller. I couldn't put it down and it had me gleefully creeped out while reading it in the dark. A bonus is that it's set in Ontario which is where I'm from. The only thing stopping it from being a 5 star read for me was the length, at almost 500 pages it could have been wrapped up in about 400 pages in my opinion.

I definitely recommend picking this one up! Be sure to check trigger warnings before diving in.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada, Margaret K. McElderry Books for this advanced copy.

4.5 Now this is horror. This is what it's supposed to do, what it's supposed to be, how it's supposed to be done. I am in awe.

Quickly, to explain why it wasn't a 5-star read for me: it was too long. It's about 500 pages, and I think it could have been done in 400. There was a lull at some point in the story, and I felt it dragging along a little. It became a bit redundant and repetitive, and had that section been cut shorter, this would have been a perfect novel.

That being said, it was still astounding. I cried non-stop the last 80 pages or so. I tabbed so many amazing passages in the book, one-liners or paragraphs that were just so poignant, so emotionally charged. Sambury really does have an amazing writing talent.

Also, the horror itself is so good. Once again, I think it would have been even more effective had the book been shorter because then the horror moments wouldn't have been quite so few and far in between. But there were such disgusting scenes in this novel I loved it. Bug horror and gore and violence and blood and ahhhhhh! I would get so giddy every time something truly nauseating would happen because I knew in that moment that I had picked up a great book. I could feel everything in my stomach and in my chest and on my whole body and it was so fun.

I also adored the messages here about abuse, about manipulation, about what it means to be a victim. I think Sambury did an amazing job of showcasing different types of toxic relationships (parent-child, romantic, etc.) and delving into them, comparing them, really dissecting each one. I loved that every single character shared, more or less, the same dreams and desires, but dealt with their abuse in different ways. The outcomes weren't the same for everyone and, as a reader, it definitely opens your eyes to what abuse can do to a person and the extent to which it can hurt so many people—not just the direct victim. I think, to a certain extent, this book does feel therapeutic. It is quite heavy, in the way I think horror should be, but it does also create a beautiful sense of hope which I adored.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book and I can't wait to add it to my list of horror novels I never stop talking about!

This book is a work of art. The mystery/thrilller aspect keeps you moving quickly until the bitter end. I really loved the way the chapters go from present to past I think it added such an incredible touch to the story telling. Our character is one to root for the the setting is so eerie.

Daisy can see dead people- something she spends most of her life avoiding when she isn’t with her manipulative and controlling college boyfriend, Noah. unfortunately (unfortunately?) Noah has since broken up with her, and now Daisy has found herself stalking his whereabouts and dodging spirits. So when her mother calls and tells her that she has inherited and house and property away from the city, Daisy figures this is as good a time as any to move on with her life.

Brittany is a young woman with an entrepreneurial spirit and a very toxic relationship with her mother. She and her business partner Jayden have been moderately successful with their YouTube series on haunted houses. Now, they are about to research and film another series about a supposed haunted house with a history of violence. But this haunted house is different. Not only does it have a fascinating past, but it is also that house that Brittany’s mom claims “changed her from an abusive and neglectful parent to a completely reformed woman”. Miracle Mansion, she has named.
Miracle Mansion is also the same house Daisy and her mother moved to 10 years earlier.

I loved this book. It so, so well written. It is also very, very creepy and gruesome at times. Both Dasiy and Brittany are characters that become independent through courage. Even though the book is heavy on the supernatural, the internal conflict both protagonists experience and how they deal with it are realistic.

Thank you to Netgalley and Margaret K McElderry Books for the advanced copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury!

This story is about to woman, set 10 years apart and a haunted house. I originally requested this book because it is set in Ontario. It did take me a little while to get into this book, but once I did I enjoyed it. None of the characters are particularly likeable, but not every character needs to be liked or to deal with their trauma in a positive way.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Delicious Monsters releases February 28, 2023

2.5/5

This is a story of two girls that are more similar than they think. Both dealt upbringings that were less than ideal with mothers that were not picture-perfect and who passed on trauma to their daughters.

Told in dual pov, we meet Daisy (past timeline), and Brittney (10 years later, present timeline).
This is set in a small town in Ontario, with a haunted house that links both stories together.

Not much really happened considering how lengthy this book was. The pay off for me was not worth it when most of the story only picked up after 70%.
I found that Daisy’s pov was much stronger, and probably could have been even stronger without the addition of Brittney’s narrative. I would have expected more investigative prose from the present timeline, and it really lacked for me, to the point that I felt it wasn’t entirely necessary to propel the main story. Brittney’s pov would have made a lot of sense had the characters in the past timeline been dead and not able to speak, but that was not the case here.

Something that wouldn’t escape my mind for the entire duration while reading this was the sheer confusion of the past/present timeline. I don’t remember it ever being mentioned what year either of the stories took place, but the math wasn’t making sense, and more importantly, it didn’t feel like it was written in the past at all. And here’s some examples of what I mean from Daisy’s timeline:
It’s supposed to be 10 years in the past, but it is written that Daisy has a phone with apps, Instagram, and was stalking others via social media sites. She’s currently 17, and it was written that she was only allowed to swear during rap songs from before she was born (the playlist was a mix of ‘90’s and ‘00’s).
She grew up in Toronto, but had no idea what a four-wheeler or ski-doo was, which didn’t make sense to me if she had such easy access to the internet. I get that Toronto is city life, I live in Vancouver myself, but it doesn’t mean you have to be that sheltered and unaware?
I also couldn’t grasp the character traits for Daisy, because at the beginning of the story she’s in this relationship where she’s lying about her age to come across as a mature 18 year old woman in college, but yet the rest of the story, she's listening to her favourite music which is Kidz Bop.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but there could have been more distinction.

With the heavy trauma dump topics, this probably would have faired better for a New Adult audience.

TW: sexual assault, physical abuse, neglect, gaslighting, grooming, killing an animal, body horror, maggots, violence, death, ghosts, possession.

Don't you love it when you realize an author has jumped into the "auto-buy" status?

I've been fortunate enough to read all three of Sambury's books in the last six months and I officially love her writing. There's just something so compelling about it that hooks me in for hours at a time. Not to mention I am so on board with the Canadian setting, even if it is *shudder* Ontario. And this was already a big departure from her Blood Like Magic series, skipping from the most eclectic mix of sci-fi and fantasy and heading straight to horror. A jump she landed with perfection.

The format for this was so interesting and well-done. If you're a fan of the storytelling in Sadie then you'll definitely want to read this. The bulk of the book is told from Daisy's POV—we're talking about 75% here—while the rest is from Brittney's side. The difference between them? Daisy's story unfolds ten years before Brittney's. I'm not sure what year specifically, but the two timelines paralleled each other really well. Daisy experiences the lakeside mansion firsthand while Brittney comes after to interview anyone who might know what happened to the forgotten Black girl who died there. Brittney's chapters were fewer and more pointed, but they shed more light on the specifics of events and added so many intriguing details to the mystery of that house.

This story and its characters are incredibly complex, but in the best way possible. That said, I do encourage readers to check out the content warnings first. The book does get into some seriously heavy topics, on and off page, and these are listed at the start of the book and here by the author.

Daisy lives in Toronto with her mother, and they bounce from tiny apartment to tiny apartment, trying to make ends meet. Her mom is somewhat unreliable, having Daisy at age sixteen and requiring her to take of herself in ways a girl her age shouldn't. Then there's the whole seeing ghosts thing, which leaves Daisy in a heartbreaking state of anxiety at all times in fear one of them will touch her. When we first meet her, she's reeling from discovering her college student boyfriend not only dumped her and is with someone else, but that everything he told her in their relationship was basically a lie. So, when the opportunity to move up north to Timmins and the mansion her mom inherited, Daisy sees it as a fresh start and a way to eventually break free of her mom .

Brittney is quite different from Daisy, being a bit ... harder. She's more jaded after dealing with her own mom's toxicity and she doesn't give certain people the benefit of the doubt. She and her friend, Jayden, have a show together where they investigate haunted places and people. This season, they're looking deeper into the house that Brittney's mom not only claims turned her life around but has made her a fortune, and tearing that story apart for Brittney is meant to be cathartic and justified.

Again, you comp something to The Haunting of Hill House and I am there in a heartbeat. This was quite freaky! I genuinely hate the ghosts that Daisy can see. The fact that some of them can touch her and are drawn to sadness unsettled me so much, especially when she started reminiscing on specific examples. There are so many great haunting moments on the lake property and in the house itself that will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat and biting your nails.

Do I think this could have been a little shorter? Yeah, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it! I was happily along for the ride and was so satisfied by the ending. Definitely reading everything Sambury puts out from now on.

So grateful to read this early, and during spooky season no less!!

I adored Blood Like Magic and have been getting into horror so was really anticipating this. The first 50 pages or so were absolutely incredible 5 star vibes, with a haunted house storyline and a true crime youtube series storyline. It fell off ever so slightly for me during the rest - I still really enjoyed it, but the mystery kept going back and forth on itself.

My other big pet peeve was the chapter transitions - it felt like constantly something horrendous would be happening at the end of a chapter (ie. a brutal fight between Daisy and her mother) and the next chapter would start with them having breakfast together happily. I hope that makes sense?? It was a bit jarring.

Overall though, despite a few things lacking, the themes of 'forgotten black girls' in this book redeemed it and I will be adding it to my shelves!

Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury
YA Horror/Paranormal
Publication Date: February 28, 2023

I hate using this phrase but there is no other way to describe my state of being after reading this novel… I am shooketh. I have never EVER been as grossed out, and yet simultaneously moved, as I was by this novel. As a self proclaimed scaredy cat who is slowly learning to push the boundaries of her horror comfort zone I was drawn to this after falling in love with Sambury’s characters in the Blood Like Magic series (if you haven’t picked it up I suggest you do yourself a favour and rectify this immediately). Delicious Monsters went well beyond my comfort zone. Yet, I was crying and not because I was scared but because this isn’t just a story of a mansion in Timmins, Ontario, haunted by ghosts and seemingly possessed. It’s a moving and haunted (pun intended) tale about intergenerational trauma, dealing with that trauma and healing. There were three little words uttered by Daisy to her mother that absolutely broke me and for the first time in my life, a book made me cry.

It's a story about the monsters in our society and how they came to be, sometimes it’s their own trauma that guides them to poor decision making and sometimes, for the most despicable, there is no reason at all. I suggest checking the trigger warnings on this one!

The story is told mostly from the perspective of Daisy, a teenage girl, uprooted from her life in Toronto by her mother’s desire to take up her inheritance (in the form of an old mansion) from her estranged brother-in-law, Peter. Fast forward ten years and Brittany, struggling with the effects of the relationship she has with her own mother, is working on a documentary about forgotten black girls and travels to Timmins to feature Daisy’s story for an online series. Brittany’s story is useful for adding information or narrative that either Daisy wouldn’t have known or to foreshadow what was about to happen.

Yes, there are elements of the paranormal. There are actually scenes that left me gagging and I had to put the book down and regroup. Yet the events that follow are something that are yes, told through fantastical means, but boiled down are happening to individuals as we speak.

I wish I could go into everyone’s TBR lists and write this book in. I wish I could go into everyone’s calendar and note the release date. I wish I could hand out copies of this story to everyone I know. I think the story of Daisy,

This is by far Sambury’s best work yet and I look forward to absolutely devouring (punny I know) anything she writes.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada for providing an advanced reading copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book. THIS BOOK THIS BOOK THIS BOOK. Where do I even begin?? Liselle Sambury has crafted a tale that grabbed me by the throat from the very first line, and did not. let. go.

DELICIOUS MONSTERS definitely deserves its HILL HOUSE comparisons. The atmosphere is *so* intense and evocative, thanks to Sambury's exquisitely powerful writing, and I found myself holding my breath several times. It's an absolute masterclass in tension. But beyond the horror (because, yes, we have maggots and butcherbirds and ghosts and a freaky, freaky house) this is also a story about trauma. It's about mother-daughter relationships, self-worth, growing up Black, and growing up different. These elements are tied together so, so beautifully across both POV's, and gah, my heart still aches for Daisy and Brittney.

It's a hard plot to comment on without spoilers, but seriously: READ THIS BOOK. I'd definitely suggest checking the content warnings too, since things get pretty heavy. This is my first encounter with Sambury's work, and I can guarantee it won't be my last.

Toxic monsters

As I was reading /Delicious Monsters/, I made the following note to myself at 29%, "So far, every character in this novel is hateful." That did not change as I read on. In the whole book there are two characters who are pretty nice guys, one a fairly important character and one minor, but aside from those two, everyone is odious. It would be fair to point out that they are hateful mostly because they have been treated badly in their pasts, and their current sadness/cruelty/arrogance is an understandable result of that past treatment. They were treated badly by other hateful characters, who often are hateful because they were treated badly by other hateful characters, and so on.

The main point-of-view characters are Daisy and Brittney. Daisy is the one on whom the story centers. She sees ghosts and has a bad relationship with her mother Grace. Grace is a Bad Person, full stop. /Delicious Monsters/ is a haunted house story. Grace inherits the haunted house from her brother-in-law, and she and Daisy go to live there, and Bad Things Happen. (Of course. If you've read any horror fiction at all, you knew that was coming.) Brittney is a YouTube-famous videographer ten years later who, with her partner Jayden, seeks to document the things that happened to Daisy in the haunted house. Brittney has a toxic relationship with her own mother, who herself has a history with the haunted house in question. Brittney despises everyone in her life (with the possible exception of Jayden) and trusts no one. <spoiler>Note even Jayden -- although she claims to trust him, Brittney shows by her actions that she in fact does not.</spoiler>

Most of the book is told from Daisy's point of view, but chapters told from Brittney's point of view are interpolated. These have the effect of foreshadowing for the reader things that became known only after what happened with Daisy went down.

/Delicious Monsters/ was a hard book to get into. That's partly because there is no real story visible until about the 60% mark, when a very important character steps into the story in a major way and we begin to learn who and what she is. (We meet her fairly early, but her part in the story is minor, or appears to be, until about 60%. <spoiler>I'm talking about Ivy</spoiler>) When I say "There is no real story visible..." in the first half, I don't mean that nothing happens. Things happen -- the problem is that nothing happens that makes you want to keep reading. That is largely because most of the characters are awful people.

I am puzzled by the title /Delicious Monsters/. Not by the second word -- there are plenty of monsters. But there was nothing in the novel, not the monsters or anything else, to which I would apply the word "delicious". "Cruel", "vengeful", "toxic", "sadistic" would fit.

<spoiler>I had mixed feelings about the ending. At the very end of /Delicious Monsters/, happy endings implausibly break out all over. Daisy and Brittney each get one. From a purely literary point of view, I would be inclined to hate this. However, I was so traumatized by 500 pages of unrelieved pain that the appearance of a little sunshine and cheer in the final pages felt good.</spoiler>

I thank NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an advance reader copy of /Delicious Monsters/. This review expresses my honest opinions.